A Dead Man's Travail Read online

  A Dead Man’s Travail

  by Susana Pagano

  1st edition, November 2017

  © Trajinar de un muerto

  Susana Pagano

  © A Dead Man’s Travail

  Susana Pagano

  Cover design: Fernanda Santibañez

  Production Supervisor: Susana Mena

  Translation: Diana Spratt

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, audio, etc., without written authorization from the Copyright owner.

  This novel was possible in part, thanks to support from

  The National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA)

  To my parents

  For giving me life

  To Erinna

  For her great sensitivity

  To Eugenia

  For her loving generosity

  To Carlos Julio

  For being himself

  1

  You’re such an ingrate, primo. The funeral cortege makes its way slowly through twisted, labyrinthine alleys full of rubbish and dry leaves, and playful spirits who hide, murmur, laugh and hide again on their dirty, crumbling graves. Today you were supposed to go and see Cholita. Had you forgotten? Natalia is at the head of the cortege dressed in black from head to toe, dark glasses covering eyes swollen from weeping. Behind her are her daughters, Natalia and Ricarda, to one side Gloria Manón and Florencia Ruiseñor de Tocino. The twins aren’t crying, neither is Florencia. The coffin with the mortal remains of Lolo Manón rests on the shoulders of Fransisco Tocino, Lolito and Hortensio Manón, Ramiro Perez, Aguinaldo Misiones and Jaime Cocinero. You did the dirty on me, you were always up to some trick or other and now you’ve disappeared off the face of the earth just so you don’t have to face the consequences. Are you a coward, or what? The cortege stops in front of an open grave in the family plot at the Spanish Cemetery. The grave diggers lean on their spades, waiting, the boredom and tiredness plain on their faces. What a blockhead you are. They went and killed you and you didn’t say a word. It would be just like you to have done it on purpose, and left me alone with all my problems and this terrible anxiety. What am I going to say to Cholita now? How am I going to look her in the eye again? You were going to fix everything; you told me just a week ago; you promised me and you swore by all the saints. The grave diggers lower the coffin into the grave. Natalia hugs her children, Lolito and Hortensia; she cries her heart out; she screams and wails as if she wished to share the grave with her murdered husband. The twins cling to each other, but they weep more for their mother than for their dead father. The girls console their mother, but feel nothing, not the slightest lump in their throat. Gloria Manón wrings her hands, clings to Aguinaldo Misiones and howls for her deceased brother like a cat in heat. Florencia manages to squeeze out a couple of imaginary tears. You’re so selfish, leaving me to die alone. What do you care what I feel? The grave diggers shovel earth on to the coffin. Gloria Manón tosses a rose on to her brother’s casket with melodrama typical of the theatrical woman she is. At one point it looks as if she is going to fall in with the rose, but Aguinaldo Misiones saves her by grabbing her dress, tearing it in the process and exposing her plumb back. Florencia covers her mouth in time to stop herself laughing and pretends to cry bitterly. The cement covers the coffin and Natalia is about to faint. Lolito holds her in his arms and takes her to sit on the tombstone of some unknown soul. Natalia declines. The thought that the person buried there might reach out and pinch her bottom horrifies her. Jaime Cocinero respectfully makes the sign of the cross and withdraws unnoticed. The others at the funeral start to disperse in complete silence. Like a tiger with its prey, Gloria Manón has grabbed hold of Aguinaldo Misiones again, but he manages to extricate himself and leaves with no further niceties. Gloria Manón follows him convulsed with sobs. How am I going to deal with my conscience now? Don’t go primo, don’t leave me like this, I don’t want to bear all this guilt by myself. Lolito has to drag Natalia away as she is refuses to leave the cemetery. The twins poke around looking at the names and inscriptions on the headstones; they do the numbers; they add and subtract: this one was fifteen years old, this other one was sixty five. Hortensio grabs them by the arm and takes them away. Francisco Tocino remains standing in front of the pit as the grave diggers continue to fill it with earth. You were really fucked, primo, and me along with you. Florencia Ruiseñor sees that her husband is still standing there like a statue and pulls him by his jacket. Let’s go, Francisco, says Florencia. You know what they say, the dead to the hole and the rest of us to the cantina. The cemetery is left as it was before, empty and desolate, with its crypts, tombstones and inscriptions exposed to the wind, the weather and oblivion. Lying there in his coffin, Lolo Manón is more alone than ever and very dead. Little by little every one of his body parts have begun to decay, together with the eighteen knife wounds.

  2

  I came to live in this humble house a very long time ago, when the last of my daughters was about to be born. Those days you could breathe easy, not like now. It’s not just the smog, you gotta put up with misery and fear, fear about heaps of things. Look at what happened in the end to my friend, Lolo. Who’d have thought? Well, when shit happens, I’spose it just happens, don’t it?

  I come from a pueblo a long way away, right in the middle of the tropics, where we got palm trees and coconuts taste of coconut. When we were kids we used to climb Don Rafa’s coconut palms to pinch as many as we could. And then Don Rafa would run like mad to try and catch us and give us a hiding, but he never could catch us. Don Rafa owned the ranch and they say he was my father and the father of all the other kids around here too. But he never acted like a father, well maybe sometimes, when he used to shout, “sons of bitches”, at us.

  I came here for the same reason that everyone else did. Back home it was impossible to live, sometimes there wasn’t enough even for the kids tacos. Every day my old lady would scold me saying, Aguinaldo, there ain’t no frijoles; Aguinaldo, gimme money for tortillas; Aguinaldo, you’re behind again with the housekeeping money; and Aguinaldo this and Aguinaldo that. But in this city I managed to get a job and started to make a living, so one way or another I have a roof over my head and bolillos in my belly.

  And the kids? They’re either married or shacked up with their partners, it seems we just make ‘em and then they clear off. The oldest got pregnant at nineteen and then got hitched to a good-for-nothing. As soon as he got her pregnant again, he was off to the cantina or to play billiards, and spent a small fortune. When he got tired of my girl, he upped and left and we never saw him for dust, gracias a Dios.

  It’s more or less the same old story with the others; the guys hit them, they get them pregnant and they leave them; the girls cry, they complain about their bad luck and then they hook up with some other guy who’s as bad or worse than the first. My youngest has four kids, each from a different husband, imagine that! All up we had four boys and three girls. The four boys turned out to be good-for-nothings and the girls sluts; yeah, just like their mamá - that figures.

  I met my wife at a booze-up. She was turning tricks at a cantina and, God knows how, she latched on to me and before I knew it I’d promised to take Maria Candelaria as my lawful wedded wife. My poor old mamá almost had a fit when I introduced her to my five-months-pregnant wife, who had a black eye ‘cause she was out turning tricks again. I beat the slut out of her with my bare fists, at least I reckon that’s what did it, but I ’spose the twenty five kilos she put on with the pregnancy would’ve put anybody off her anyway. You wouldn’t believe how tricky women are, after she had the last girl, Maria Candelaria went and died of placenta precocious, or whatever you
call it, and lumped me with a bunch of kids. She knew I was gonna leave her with the brats, so she went and died out of spite.

  Later on I went an’ got hitched again so’s I’d have a woman to take care of those things. You can imagine, can’t you, sir, changing diapers an’ cleaning the kid’s backsides. Luckily I already knew Gloria, Lolo’s sister, as we’d been an item for months. But getting hitched to Gloria didn’t last long. She knew there were other women an’, ‘cause she didn’t like it, she got her own back an’ got involved with one of those govmint officials. So I sent her packing, ‘cause I wasn’t gonna put up with that, was I? Then she begged me to forgive her, but ya can’t forgive a two timer, right? She thought she’d be clever an’ lump me with the govmint guy’s kid. Did the bitch think I was stupid or something?

  Anyway, Lolo and me, we was still friends and if we talked about Gloria it was just to laugh about her and the albino kid she’d had. That was the real pay back for me after her affair with the official.

  3

  From the German’s apartment you can hear the aria - the part where Madame Butterfly dies - full blast. Lolo Manón pulls to pillow over his head to try and shut out the strident screeches of that crazy old dame in her last moments of agony. Natalia is lying on her bed trying to concentrate on the passionate story of Jazmine. Lolo tosses and turns for what seems a long time trying to get to sleep.

  ⎯ Goddamit, when is that damn Nazi going to go to sleep like a normal Christian?

  ⎯ Maybe he’s Jewish?

  ⎯ Maybe he’s a dipstick?

  ⎯ Don’t be like that, Lolo. The German is a good person, a bit thick, but still a good person.

  ⎯ What do you mean, a good person? Haven’t you noticed how he looks us up and down as if we owed him something? I don’t owe no one nothing, not even my mother I didn’t ask her to go to bed with my father. I reckon he looks down on us ‘cause we ain’t got blue eyes and skin the colour of a baby’s bottom, same as him.

  ⎯ Well, I prefer the German’s screeches to the racket of the drums coming from the neighbour in number six. He really keeps everyone awake, he even gives me nightmares.

  Lolo gets out of bed, does a few stretching exercises while he scratches his belly; then goes to the fridge to find a beer.

  ⎯ Why the hell are there no beers? That’s the last straw. I have a bloody great store full of groceries, an’ there are no beers in the house. Do you want me to die of thirst?

  ⎯ Have some water.

  ⎯ I can’t drink water ‘cause I’ll rust.

  ⎯ Why should that worry you? You’re a wreck anyway.

  ⎯ Maybe so, but I don’t want water.

  ⎯ Well, go to the store yourself, then.

  ⎯ Why don’t you go?

  ⎯ ‘Cause I’m not the one who’s thirsty and, if I was, I’d have milk or water.

  ⎯ Milk! Do you think I’m a baby? Even the twins don’t have milk anymore.

  Lolo sits back down on the bed and watches his wife, who is absorbed in her book and doesn’t even look up.

  ⎯ Why are you always reading that rubbish?

  ⎯ At least I’m reading something. You don’t even read the labels on the stuff you drink every day.

  ⎯ I can’t be bothered with that rubbish. Reading’s a waste of time, you should be cleaning the house instead. It looks like a pig sty.

  Natalia pays no notice, she has reached the climax of the story and is not going to listen to Lolo’s complaints. Luisa, the heroine, has at last found the man she loves. Natalia sighs, Carlos Mendizabal is so gorgeous! What a nice story! I’d give anything for something as romantic as that! Carlos rides like the wind on his pure white horse to reach the beautiful and radiant Luisa and wrap his arms tightly around her. Why couldn’t I have lived something like that? Natalia looks at Lolo and sighs again. If I had known my husband would have turned out so fat and so ugly, that would have been a horse of a different colour...

  ⎯ I’m talking to you...

  ⎯ OK, OK, I’m going.

  ⎯ Where are you going?

  Carlos reigns in his horse. It whinnies. Luisa holds out her arms dizzy with emotion and happiness; her eyes shine with loving ecstasy and sweetness. ⎯ Luisa⎯ , ⎯Carlos⎯ . Their arms entwine in an eternal, pure embrace, full of promise and breathtaking plans for the future. ⎯ I love you⎯ , says Luisa blinded by love. ⎯ I love you⎯ , says Carlos.

  ⎯ Now what? Why are you bawling?

  ⎯ Because it’s the most beautiful love story I’ve ever read.

  ⎯ Don’t be such a clown. They all make you cry and you always say the same.

  ⎯ You don’t understand what is in a woman’s heart.

  ⎯ You gonna get sentimental again? You’re impossible when you start with your nonsense. I forbid you to read that rubbish.

  ⎯ Oh no, you certainly won’t! It’s my only entertainment and you want to forbid it? You can ask anything else of me, but not that.

  ⎯ You’re crazy, woman, worse than the German.

  ⎯ What were you saying to me a while ago?

  ⎯ I’ve forgotten...ah, yes! I’m gonna need 500 pesos.

  ⎯ Again?

  ⎯ Yeah, so what?

  ⎯ What happened to what I gave you the day before yesterday?

  ⎯ I spent it, what do you expect?

  ⎯ What did you spend it on?

  ⎯ That’s my business.

  ⎯ I bet it was at the cantina with Francisco Tocino and Aguinaldo Misiones, wasn’t it?

  ⎯ Are you gonna give it to me or not?

  ⎯ OK, OK, I’ll get it.

  Natalia sets her novel aside, goes to the bathroom and closes the door. The moment she turns the key, Lolo leaps off the bed and tries to spy through the key hole but the key is still in there and he can’t see. Fuck it. He puts his ear to the door to try and figure out what Natalia is doing but he can’t hear anything; exasperated, he goes back and sits on the bed; he lights up a cigarette and thinks about the blond in the mini skirt with the spiky up hair that he met the day before. Where shall I take her tomorrow? The Monarca or the Saratoga? Better take her to the Monarca, it’s not such a bad dump really. This chick is gonna ruin me with all her wants, but she’s worth it, this one’s a good one.

  ⎯ I don’t have anything.

  ⎯ What?

  ⎯ Yesterday I paid some long distance calls, today the electricity bill and that’s gone up a lot, and tomorrow the girls’ school fees. Isn’t that enough?

  ⎯ Just take five hundred out of the school fees and that’ll do it.

  ⎯ Don’t even think about it.

  ⎯ Don’t be like that. Nothing’s gonna happen if you get a bit behind with the payment.

  ⎯ Forget it.

  ⎯ I need five hundred for tomorrow, please Natalia.

  ⎯ I already said no – Natalia lies on the bed and keeps on reading.

  ⎯ Four hundred? Ok, three hundred then, I’ll get by with three hundred.

  ⎯ Stop insisting.

  ⎯ Stop being pig-headed, at least give me too hundred, come on, two hundred’s nothing, don’t be like that.

  ⎯ I said no, so let me read.

  ⎯ OK, a hundred, that’s my last word, a hundred and I’ll leave you alone and you can keep reading.

  With a prolonged kiss the lovers are join together in the bonds of love, bonds that nothing and no one will ever break. Natalia closes the last page and opens the book again at the first. It was a lovely, calm day with not a cloud in the sky to cast a shadow over the beauty of the scenery. Luisa breathed deeply, her senses filling with the marvellous smells of the English countryside...

  4

  I’ve heard it said that the German doesn’t like women, but that’s not unusual; these days men prefer men and as far as women are concerned, we can all go to hell. The other day I met him in the corridor of the building. He didn’t even say hello, he was in a big hurry and was with his usual friend. In the afternoons they talk for a long time with the music on really lo
ud. I like their music because it reminds me of the movies on the tele, very tragic but really nice. Everyone says that the German’s a bit crazy, probably because he is he is European and Europeans are like aliens from another planet. No one in the building understands him - not him nor the couple in number 7, they like classical music too. My parents would kill me if I played opera or anything like that, or else they’d take me back to the hospital. They take me to the hospital so they can get rid of me but I don’t care. It’s really all the same to me, being here or there.

  When I was about ten years old, I saw my Mamá with another man - one who wasn’t my Papá. I didn’t tell anyone because my Mamá would have hit me in the teeth. That time I was sent to my room because I had broken the lamps and decorations in the lounge trying to escape from a man with the head of a dragon who was chasing me to make a baby. Of course, my parents said I was possessed by the devil and they locked me in my room. That made me feel better because that way the dragon man couldn’t hurt me. No one can hurt me in my room, only if I open the door and give the signal. Anyway, I felt much better then and started to play with my guinol puppets.

  ⎯ I’m going to cut your head off, Prince Charming - Freddie Frog said to the prince who lived in the castle.

  ⎯ No little frog. No, please. I’ll do whatever you want.

  ⎯ I want you to get the princess out of jail and bring her to me right now.

  ⎯ Yes, little frog, I’ll do what you want, but why do you want the princess? - asked the prince trembling with fear.

  ⎯ So I can marry her.

  ⎯ You can’t marry her, she’s mine.