Out of the Wings

La agonía del difunto (c.1976), Esteban Navajas

A Dead Man's Dying : Act One, Scene I

A Dead Man's Dying, translated by Mike Gonzalez, Davey Anderson

Act One, Scene I

Context:

Benigno and Otilia have come to pay their respects to the dead.

Sample text

DONA CARMEN:

… duty … How easily some people forget about duty, even the most basic duty … to respect their superiors and the dead (There follows an uncomfortable silence.). I never believed this painful moment would ever come …

BENIGNO:

It always comes, sooner or later, by itself or with a bit of help from someone else!

DONA CARMEN:

It was very kind of you to come; you’ve spent the whole night awake, here with me. You must be very tired.

BENIGNO:

There’s never any sleep when we’re sitting with the dead. When Natalia and our two comrades died, may they rest in peace, it was the pain that tore us apart, not tiredness.

DONA CARMEN:

It was a terrible time for us all. Let’s not drag it up again. It only brings back the hatred, and God says that we should not hate.

BENIGNO:

We have principles too. The dead, when they were people we loved, live on in us. When they were people we hated, they just stay buried in the darkest part of our memories.

OTILIA:

Amen. Everyone loved Natalia Sanpues. When someone was hungry, you knew a plate of plantain would appear at the door. She’d leave it and slip away without waiting to be thanked. That year of the terrible hunger, there was a woman whose milk dried up just after she’d given birth. Natalia had just had a child too and she came and shared her breast with the woman’s baby.

DONA CARMEN:

She was a saint (Going to the window and opening it.) The smell of candle wax, the smoke, the musky smell of bodies make me sick … Mmmm … this rain … (She puts her hands out of the window to collect rainwater in her cupped hands and washes her face with it.)

(OTILIA approaching the bed murmurs something a few inches from Agustino’s ear.)

DONA CARMEN: (Turning suddenly.)

Don’t go near Agustino, Otilia. I’ve told you over and over again not to go near him … !

BENIGNO:

I can’t get over it. He looks the same as he did on the day he dropped dead.

DONA CARMEN:

A heart attack. Something must have upset him terribly. He had a very delicate heart.

BENIGNO: (Lighting a cigar stub.)

There wasn’t anyone like him.

OTILIA:

You’d think he was still warm. With this heat it’s a miracle the worms haven’t eaten him already …

DONA CARMEN:

I brought Valentina in to pray over him and keep the worms away. I’m a great believer in her spells. She’s got a spell for everything: to scare away undesirables, bring lovers together, get rid of ticks in cows, cure broken hearts, find husbands for girls on the shelf, for anything you need.

BENIGNO:

I lost my faith in her when her prayers couldn’t stop the bullets from killing Natalia, my wife.

DONA CARMEN: (Shudders.)

You can’t expect the impossible. What’s meant to be will be.

BENIGNO:

Why haven’t you dressed him and buried him yet, Ma’am? The longer the corpse lies here, the more it’ll upset you. When human beings die, memories flower.

DONA CARMEN:

In this house we do things as they are supposed to be done. The dead can only be buried after absolution.

OTILIA:

But we could be getting him ready. He’s not right for a funeral …

DONA CARMEN:

Just leave him as he is.

OTILIA: (Approaching the body.)

He can’t appear before his maker in chaps and smelling of horses.

DONA CARMEN:

It’s the purity of his soul that matters. Now pull down that mosquito net and stop prying.

BENIGNO:

It’s odd …

DONA CARMEN:

There’s nothing odd about it (Moving towards the wardrobe.) I’ll dress him the way I remember him in my sweetest memories. I’ll do it myself; no one ever laid a hand on him when he was alive and I certainly won’t let anyone else touch him in death. (DONA CARMEN brings out a tropical white suit.)

OTILIA:

Oh Jesus and Mary!

DONA CARMEN: (With an impatient gesture)

Get on with polishing his boots, Otilia. And you Benigno, you can tie his tie. He’ll be ready when Father Piñeiros arrives.

BENIGNO: (Tying his tie with some difficulty.)

Question is, will the priest get here before the boss starts to decompose …

DONA CARMEN:

… He will get here in time

BENIGNO:

When it’s raining like this you can never be sure.

DONA CARMEN:

With the help of God and Demosthenes he will be here.

OTILIA:

I’m not so sure …

DONA CARMEN:

Hmm ?

OTILIA:

It’s been raining non-stop for two months. The fields are under six feet of water. Rain is a curse. Season of rain; season of pain. Heaven is pouring down on us all the tragedies at once.

DONA CARMEN:

A curse?

OTILIA:

The rain makes everything grow, but it’s a curse for us peasants. It floods our little fields, turns the earth floors of our huts to mud and we have to sleep on the wet straw of the roof; it kills our children with swollen bellies and the crosses that mark our dead disappear under the water.

BENIGNO:

We kept asking Don Agustino to talk to his friends in Congress about building a dam. But he just ignored us.

DONA CARMEN:

But floods are good for the Sebu bulls

BENIGNO:

We don’t have any Sebu. The only thing we own are our hungry bellies.

DONA CARMEN:

Moans and groans won’t fill your stomach. … Now give me a hand with his trousers.

OTILIA:

He looks just like he did on his wedding day. He’s a real picture.

DONA CARMEN:

He was so elegant, so slim, so … manly. He was different from the fops who came from the city selling cosmetics. I can still remember hearing that little bell ringing in my heart every day at five o’clock. I used to go out on to the balcony with my sewing and I’d see him ride by – every day at the same time, so erect and handsome … and then that Sunday he stopped under my balcony. I sat there, very still, staring at the tulips I was embroidering. Out of the corner of my eye I could see his restless stallion. A moment passed and then he said ‘Don’t play games with me. You know I’m looking at you’. I could feel my heart about to burst (Shakes her head, as if to get rid of the memories.) … It all flooded back just then … They were crazy times.

BENIGNO:

You can’t stop remembering. When you realise that the person you’ve shared your life with is never coming back, the memories come rushing in like the cattle coming in for the spring round-up, pushing and shoving to get to the corral first, goring each other, mooing for the calves they have taken away, banging against the fences as they run. (His voice is dry and his eyes moist.) And there’s no prod in the world, by God there’s not a one that can drive out the memories from the corral of the mind. (Resumes his neutral tone, chewing on his words, as he moves through his painful memories.) I sat for days with Natalia’s body, reliving the long walks from my father’s little plot to the station bar in the village. I’d stay for a drink. And then there was a day when I waited till I’d had my third and then I said to Natalia ‘I’m ready’. ‘Ready for what?’ she asked. I sipped my chicha, looking for the words, and then I said again ‘I’m ready’. She looked at me, but didn’t say anything. She lifted the tray of glasses on to the rolled-up cloth on her head, and said to me ‘Let’s go then’. ‘Where to?’ I asked, still sucking at my drink/chicha??? like an idiot. ‘Where do Christians get married then ? To the church, man.’ She took my hand and we walked out of the bar to the church after she’d shouted to the white hands and faces that appeared at the windows of the last carriage ‘No more chicha till you get to Chiriguana. Tough!’

OTILIA: