B0040702LQ EBOK (18 page)

`Was the basket closed?'

`Of course! If it was open, they would escape.'

`So they're alive inside the basket.'

`They are, sir.'

And, appalled, we both looked away.

Twenty-four hours later, the kittens were still mewing. To
know this, I had only to look at Guitian, who was walking
sombrely up and down in the remotest part of the garden.

`They're still there then?' I asked.

And he stopped, with his hands behind his back, and gave
me a strange, hard look.

`Can't you hear them?' he replied. `Is there a loud enough
noise anywhere in the world to drown out the noise those
poor wretches make? There are only five of them calling now;
but the sound of their complaints reaches every corner. I hear
them even with the sheets pulled up over my head, even if I
move right away from the garden, even if I'm grinding coffee
in the old coffee mill ...'

There was a pause.

`You say there are only five of them now.'

`Yes, only five.'

`What happened to the sixth?'

He came over to me, eyes bulging, and said:

`They've eaten it, sir. I'm sure of it. They must have drawn
lots. After the shipwreck of the Arosa, those of us still on the
raft had to draw lots too ...'

A generous soul! He was trembling with fever.

Maybe it was just his words that put the idea in my head,
but, from then on, I too could hear the cats miaowing in every
room, everywhere. I imagined them writhing around inside
the crushed basket, their fur on end, their eyes shining fiercely
in the thick darkness, besmirched by the earth that seeped in
through the cracks.

Four days later, they were still calling. Guitian had lost so
much weight that his clogs no longer fitted him. I sought him
out in the corner of the kitchen where he went to be alone
with his remorse. He was counting the cats as they stopped
their mewing.

`There are two left. We must suffer for another forty-eight
hours.'

And the following dawn:

`There's one left. Tomorrow ... it will all be over.'

As soon as day broke, we ran out into the garden. A cat,
a single cat was still mewing sadly, a tiny, mournful, heartrending sound.

And it continued to do so for another day and another,
for a week ... Against all logic, its cries grew in volume. It
was no longer like the crying of a newborn babe, heard
through the wall. Sometimes, it was the furious miaowing
of an angry tomcat and, at others, the long, plaintive, persuasive call they utter beneath the January moon, when
they are trying to convince some female cat to surrender to
love.

Our sense of horror was mounting steadily. We were living
through some ghastly tale by Edgar Allen Poe. My servant had
said to me:

`This will end badly, sir.'

We were, indeed, convinced that the whole sad story would
end in catastrophe, an outcome that we could sense only
confusedly.

One afternoon, as we were walking along the road - we avoided the house and garden as much as possible - I said to
the melancholy skeleton at my side:

`Guitian, I can't understand how the poor creature' (we
spoke of it with compassion and affection) `can still survive. It
was buried almost a month ago; even if some air were still
getting through, what can it eat? No animal could last that
long in those conditions.'

`It's eating its own tail, sir.'

`Its own tail?'

`As you know, cats' tails keep growing, especially when
they're young, like the poor creature in there. It will eat a little
each day and each day another bit will grow'

`That's ridiculous, Guitian.'

`What else can the poor wretch do, sir?'

`Guitian.'

`Yes, sir.'

`We've got to do something. .
.'

`What?'

`We've got to ... finish the creature off.,

`But how?'

'We'll tamp down the earth covering its body.'

`I don't know if I've got it in me to do that.'

`I'll help you. Shall we do it now?'

He drew one hand across his brow, and said:

`Yes, let's finish it.'

We ran to the garden. In the toolshed we found the tamper
that was used to smooth the paths, and we carried it off to the
terrible, familiar place by the garden wall.

I fell back a little, shaken by some vague, supernatural idea.

`Go on then!' I ordered.

The man lifted the tamper, still uncertain.

`Go on!' I shouted boldly.

And the heavy instrument fell upon the earth with a dull
thud. His eyes wild, his mouth set in a grimace, Guitian rained
down blows on the earth, all the while crying:

`Forgive me, forgive me, poor creature! Unlucky martyr,
more martyred than all the martyrs put together! Forgive
me, forgive me! Please die! I'm killing you for your own good, poor, sad creature. I'm only following my master's
orders!'

I had to flee the scene, because I thought I might go mad.

From that moment, the cat miaowed more obstinately and
furiously than ever.

A devastated Guitian came to me and said:

`Sir, I've come to say goodbye.'

I nodded.

`I understand, my faithful friend, I understand. This tor-
tnent has become unbearable.'

`If you mean the miaowing of the six cats - because now
the six of them have started up again - I've some good news
for you. In half an hour, they can miaow all they like, because I
won't hear them.'

`Are you leaving the village?'

`I'm going to kill myself, sir. I can't stand it any longer.
They have poisoned my life, as the priest said when the doctors forbade him to have more than six helpings at mealtimes.
I just wanted to ask you if you would mind very much if I
hanged myself from that chestnut tree near the gate. It doesn't
really matter to me which tree I use, but that one is the
strongest.'

`My friend,' I said, moved, `choose whichever tree you like,
even the peach tree, although you know how badly it reacts to
having its branches broken. But since it's you ... Before I let
you do it, though, I have a proposal.'

`There's nothing more to be done.'

`Let's fight one last battle.'

`No Goodbye, sir. Enjoy life ... if you can.'

He left.

`Guitian,' I shouted from the gate, `we've got one final card
to play.'

`What's that?'

`Why don't we dig them up?'

He hesitated for a moment. Then I dragged him with
me and placed a hoe in his hand. The miaowing was more terrifying than ever, like a spine-chilling concerto. We dug
and dug ... We thought we would encounter monstrous,
shapeless creatures covered in earth, their eyes too ... We dug
and dug ...

The hoe struck the crumbling, rotten basket.

We dug again.

And there was the small, jumbled pile of cats, their bodies
beginning to mingle with the earth. They were all quite dead,
putrefying and ... silent.

Translated by Margaret full Costa

Wenceslao Fernandez Florez (La Coruna, 1885 - Madrid,
1964) started out as a journalist on various Galician newspapers and then moved to Madrid where he achieved fame
with his chronicles of parliamentary life: Acotaciones de un
oyente published in the Madrid newspaper ABC. His books -
including Volvoreta (1917), El secreto de Barba Azul (1923) and
Las siete columnas (1926) - were immensely popular in their
day, though his work is now little known. His many incursions into the world of the fantastic produced a large number
of remarkable short stories and novels, including La casa de la
lluvia (1925), Fantasmas (1930) and El bosque animado (1943).
This story is taken from Visiones de neurastenia (1924).

I hope my readers will forgive me if I write Hell with a capital
H. I also write Devil, Cemetery and Cathedral with capitals,
just to be different. We so rarely use capital letters. Of a
gentleman whose surname was Carballo, but who wrote it
Carvallo, they say he did so in order to save on ink.

Now I chanced to find myself in the town of Ferreira in
1945, the year that the Second World War ended. Everyone
was talking about what had happened. When the new gravedigger set about opening a niche in the Cemetery, he had
nearly had to demolish the tomb next to it. He had to lay it
completely open. And .. .

To his great surprise, he saw that in the tomb to the right
there was a skeleton lying outside the coffin ... and the coffin
was empty. The frontal bone of the skull was caved in and two
ribs were broken. Otherwise, the skeleton was that of a small
man.

The gravedigger reported the case to the mayor and the
mayor imparted the news to the Investigating Magistrate who
immediately ordered an official investigation.

Incidentally, calling the town Ferreira is a mere convention.
It could just as easily be Monforte, Ribadavia or Orense.

According to records in the Municipal Archive, the remains
belonged to a man who had been buried in 1918, at the time
of the flu epidemic, and the gravedigger was nicknamed
Foulmouth because he was always cursing.

With that sparse information, I began my investigation, and
my stay in Ferreira lasted for three months. When I finished,
I wrote a report which I sent to the Royal Academy of
History. But the years passed and I received no reply from the
Academy, not even a word, either directly or indirectly, which
forced me to conclude that the Academy must think me mad.

The reader will be aware that during the 1918 flu epidemic
gravediggers and undertakers had a great deal of work to do, as
did the doctors, the priests and the pharmacists.

In 1918, for example, in Lugo, the gravediggers would
normally bury two people a day, but a month and a half into
the epidemic, they were burying twelve or fourteen a day. In
Ferreira it was much the same.