comes to the divine. We lack the vital, primitive happiness of the Greeks, Yorubas or Hindus who dialogue with their Gods and sit them at their table. I’ve always thought it wrong, for example, to ignore the humour that exists in the Holy Scriptures, to scorn the holy smile that God gave and communicated to us, and forget how Jesus’s first great miracle was to convert wine into water… A very clear sign from on high.”
“And what about devils, Eligio?” asked a know-all in the front row.
“Look, young man, the existence of devils attests to the existence of God, and vice versa. They need each other as Good needs Evil to exist. And that’s why evil is also everywhere: in hell, on earth, inside and outside. Moreover, if we follow the tradition of the Talmud, the angels appeared on the second day of creation. Hence Lucifer, the most beautiful of all these angels, has existed from that early date, do you see? Then the fall of Lucifer and his dissident band took place, and so I’ve heard, the devil has been characterized ever since by the fact that every third time he blinks, he blinks upwards, he cannot walk backwards or blow his nose; he never sleeps and is impatient, ambitious and never creates a shadow; his favourite food is flies, but he eats other things, which are always highly spiced, though he has an aversion to salt… But what most interests me about devils is their real artistic prowess: they say the malign one is an excellent musician and prefers stringed instruments. I always remember as an example how Juan Horozco y Covarrubias in his Treatise on True and False Prophecy, published in Segovia in 1588, states that he possesses proof of the devil’s artistic vocation. In his book the father recounts how he saw Lucifer, after the latter had taken on the body of a rather thick village girl, compose some beautiful profane verse and, as they say now, put them to music, so they could be sung to the accompaniment of a lute which, with a woman’s hands and arms, he played ‘like the most expert in the world’. Now, young man, I’m more interested in demons on earth than in hell, like Max Beerbohm, the English novelist who wrote Zuleika Dobson, that fascinating story of the planet’s most beautiful woman, who caused a love-sickness able to provoke the suicide en masse of all Oxford students in love with her devilish charms and, as one gleans from the novel’s final pages, also loved by those in Cambridge, where she was bound. It is one of the most diabolical stories I’ve read.. .” Eligio was emphatic, with his eyes receding when the Count opted to guarantee peace and quiet for his conversation with the poet and went out to reserve a table at the Louvre Cafe. Do you have any vintage rum? Yes, and Gold Medal. No, two vintage rums, without ice. No, not now, I’ll be back, keep the table, he warned the waiter, and went out to find Eligio Riego who, pipe in hand, was chatting at the exit from the lecture theatre to a young woman apparently melting under the heat from his words. Could he be the devil himself? I’ve no option but to interrupt, old friend, the Count told himself, and accosted him thus: “Forgive me, maestro… I’m your friend Rangel’s friend.”
“Young man, it’s a fabulous story about the tranvestite murdered wearing Electra Garrigo’s costume. Almost half demoniacal, you know? Like nearly everything involving Alberto Marques, who’s more shocking than Max Beerbohm… Look, young man, he and I have known each other and been friends from the forties, when we used to meet to prepare the issues of the magazine, often in Fat Lezama’s house, and I’ve always thought it was lucky this fellow was there to turn everything into a joke and puncture the atmosphere of poetic solemnity imposed by Lezama. We held poetry to be something entirely serious, transcendent, telluric, as they say now, and for him it was always a way to show off his cleverness, brilliance and talent. Because Alberto is one of the most intelligent men I’ve known, although I’ve always criticized the fact that he could sacrifice everything for a good joke, for the erotic chase, as he calls it, or one of his diabolically evil deeds, naturally. His break with Lezama and the whole magazine group in the fifties was one of his most shockingly evil deeds, but then I also understood him: he needed to be himself and shine alone. He was always like that, a loose cannon searching restlessly, and that was why I lamented the excesses committed against him, when they isolated him completely, just because they wanted to punish his irreverence and artistic rebelliousness. It was intensely sad, young man, and the ten years they delayed before trying to right this wrong was too long for him. But what was most extraordinary about Alberto’s dramatic character flourished in those difficult years: he displayed a dignity that was frankly enviable, and stopped writing and thinking about the theatre, which was all the more surprising in someone like him who lived for the world’s stages… Did I say he is an exhibitionist?… Careful with him. Alberto’s a born actor, one of the best actors I’ve ever seen, and he likes to invent his own comedies and tragedies. He exaggerates what he is or explains what he isn’t, so you really don’t know what goes… He says it is a form of self-defence. Perhaps this character of his is the reason why our friendship improves at a distance: we prefer to respect rather than engage with each other. I think he may understand me. No, my situation was different: I’ve always been a Catholic, though I’m not a mystic like your transvestite and in no way sanctimonious: as you can see, I drink large quantities of rum, smoke my pipes, and have never been able to deny myself the sometimes desperate contemplation of a girl coming into flower, because I’m convinced there’s no beauty on earth to surpass the heat which comes from youth. In a word, we are children of time and dust, and no poetry can spare us that. Other things perhaps, but the time allotted to each of us, no chance. That’s why I think life should be enjoyed on one’s own terms, provided the enjoyment doesn’t prejudice one’s neighbour, do you see? But there was a phase when it was thought that the vision of the world and life propounded by Catholic writers was inappropriate, that our fidelity was blemished by irrevocable spiritual fidelities and consequently we couldn’t be trusted, apart from being retrograde and philosophically idealist, you know? So we were discreetly sidelined. Nothing like what happened to Alberto and other people. The fact was, social commitment was confused with individual mind-sets and then extremists put us on the list of targets to be dealt with: we were ideologically impure and, for some, pernicious if not reactionary, when the preponderance of matter seemed clearly demonstrated, as they say out there. Someone with a Muscovite mentality thought uniformity was possible in this hot, heterodox country where nothing’s ever been pure, and then they unleashed a wave of hysteria against literature which left several corpses abandoned on the roadside and several walking wounded covered in scars… But I left the stage voluntarily: I couldn’t renounce something I’d always believed in (a lovely trait, as Alberto would say) or mistake the circumstantial for the essential. In any case I’d have betrayed myself if I’d let myself be defeated by what was transitory or, worse, if I’d pretended to change, as many people did. .. That’s why I trusted to silence but didn’t stop writing. The Marquess is different, as you’ll know if you’ve had a couple of conversations with him: his extreme sacrifice has the ingredients, many would say, of theatrical tragedy. But, I repeat, don’t be put off by what he says, try to see the truth in what he has done: he resisted all the insults, but stayed here, although only, as he says, to see the final fate of those who harassed him… The fact is he calls for the right to revenge, though he’d be incapable of transforming it into physical acts or public outrages. Look, young man, I’d also advise you, if at all possible, not to be misled by the many unpleasant incidents and stories you’ve heard about any of us: writers and artists aren’t as diabolical as is sometimes thought or alleged. Did they never tell you about the wrong-doings and hassles that occur among bank employees or workers in innocent canning factories or dozy members of a diplomatic mission? Don’t such things happen among you policemen? What I mean is that we don’t have an exclusive on back-biting, opportunism and ambition. Like everywhere, Good and Evil blend in each and every one of us. Young man: what more can I say, except to thank you for this vintage rum nobody could classify as diabolical which has warmed our conversation in a place that is so delightful?… Perhaps, as a result of some professional defect, you got the wrong person, and expected to hear a different opinion from me, but I profess two unchanging fidelities in my life: friendship and poetry. As long as I live I’ll write poetry, whether it’s published or not, whether it wins a poetry festival or not, whether they give me recognition for it or not. And friendship is a voluntary commitment one enters into, and if one does, it has to be respected: although we don’t agree on many things, Alberto Marques is my friend and when someone, you or anyone else, asks about him, the first thing I say is that he is my friend, and I think that says it all. Don’t you agree, young man?”
While he waited, Jose Antonio Morales’s eyes followed the extravagant flight of that pigeon. He observed how the bird soared dizzily, then tucked in its wings and performed strange pirouettes, as if discovering for the first time the vertiginous sensation of plunging into the void. It soared again, then disappeared behind the building, to return to the patch of sky visible from the corner of the yard where Jose Antonio awaited the accounts inspector. He thought how in his twenty-eight years as a bus driver he’d never seen pigeons while waiting for the results of the day’s takings and he felt more strongly than ever he would kill that woman.
Jose Antonio had till that day behaved like a balanced, responsible person, who’d never thought of killing anyone, at least coldly, with premeditation. Sometimes when he was driving his bus and suffered careless knocks from other drivers, he’d felt so under attack he even imagined he was carrying a sawn-off shotgun, seen in some Sicilian film, and that from his bus window he’d executed the dastardly violator of his rights on the road. But even those summary judgements of imagination had become less frequent over the years, as Jose Antonio got used to tolerating insouciant drivers whose existence now seemed as commonplace as ants in the sugar or roses on a rose
