PEDIR TABACO A LA REINA
Publicado en la voz de Alerta y la nueva España 20 de julio 1982
Ese gran escritor ovetense que es cándido al que es de recibo leer todas las mañanas en ABC como los lectores españoles nuestros tatarabuelo leyeron a clarín en el Solfeo o en la correspondencia en su día ha escrito un magnifico palique acerca del individuo que días atrás en Londres logró burlar la vigilancia de palacio y adentrarse en los aposentos de la reina. El dedicado columnista realiza un sutil encaje de bolillos imaginativo tratando de explicar el caso por chicuelinas y remoquetes bien lucidos con aditamentos de la mitología. Porque mitológico es el suceso. Una proeza así sólo puede ser llevada a cabo por un Palmerín o un Caballero del Lago. Esto parece un lance de libro de caballerías. Alguien que esté loco de remate – esto sólo puede hacerlo un inglés- es capaz de irle a pedir fuego a la reina cuando duerme en su cámara regia. Historias así sólo pueden suceder en Londres. Esta es una dellas.
El míster en cuestión se llama Fagan. Hasta procede el apellido. Fagan de fag que en slang significa cigarrillo o tagarnina. Los pilluelos londinenses a veces se acercaban al viandante:
- Got a fag, mate
Y es justamente lo que le pidió el sujeto a Isabel II. La reina come y duerme sola. El príncipe consorte utiliza otro dormitorio. Es posible que hasta la egregia persona necesitaba un poco de compañía en una calurosa noche del farragosto londinense cuando sube una niebla sofocante de las riberas del Támesis. A la señora que tiene que tomarse pastillas para conciliar el sueño por poco la entra un soponcio al ver al intruso. Ya estaba en los brazos de Morfeo cuando zas allí aparece el bueno de Fagan. No era el mayordomo ni el carpintero pero actuaba con una naturalidad sorprendente y de seguro que conocía la casa.
En estas noches de julio la ciudad es un horno auque yo tuve en mis digs la estufa encendida en pleno agosto un año que hubo muchas galernas. Sin embargo, en Inglaterra las viviendas no suelen gozar de aire acondicionado. Ni la calefacción central. Los británicos son renuentes a estos artilugios y prefieren el fresh air por eso el sitio donde yo he pasado más frío en mi vida fue durante aquellos inviernos en el Yorkshire, madre mía qué heladas y las casas tienen paredes endebles. No están preparadas para el invierno. No suele haber contraventanas ni persianas por lo que muchas residencias parecen escaparates. EL inglés es algo exhibicionista y hasta diríase que le gustan que le miren los pasantes cuando se encuentra en su hogar. Su casa es su castillo pero transparente. También les gusta alzar las ventanas que allí llaman francesa y cuyos batientes no son de tirar ni tienen pestillos ni fallebas, sencillamente se alzan sobre un montante y lo más probable que la reina de Inglaterra tuviera las de su alcoba abiertas para dejar pasar un poco de fresh air y por allí se coló el ladrón de la intimidad regia. No sé lo que habrá ocurrido ahora con la nueva arquitectura de los llamados edificios inteligentes totalmente aislados del exterior pero entonces esta política de ventanas abiertas en las caldas noches veraniegas era una invitación a los cacos. Otro elemento: las cortinas. Suelen ser de nylon blanco y se mueven onduladas por las ráfagas de viento por lo que en muchos dormitorios donde me acosté en las Islas yo creí ver fantasmas durante las sesiones de cine de la sábana blanca. De todas formas a los fantasmas ingleses les suele gustar el buen tiempo. Aparecen por primavera. Por ejemplo el monstruo del Lago Ness y las serpientes de verano. Hay castillos que incluso tienen guías especiales para mostrar las casas con fantasma a los turistas. No son como las brujas de mi pueblo. En Puente Perin las brujas celebraban sus aquelarres por Nochebuena y las ánimas se aparecían a los viandantes a partir de la noche de san Andrés.
Lo más probable es que Fagan, el hombre invisible, el pimpinela escarlata nuevo diablo cojuelo saltando a la pata coja por los tejados de Buckingham Palace y bajando por las chimeneas entrara en la augusta morada a favor de la noche. De todas suertes esta es una historia confusa llena de misterio digna de la labia de una ágata Christie. Con su plot, su alibi sus coartadas y todo. A los lectores ingleses que tienen mucha concha y bastante recamara en las historias de intriga y de judanit se les puede contar una historia al revés. Luego el lector por su cuenta ata cabos pero aquí las cosas al parecer carecen de títere con cabeza. El fog londinense es imprescindible en esta clase de lances. El fog de Fagan. No estamos ante un mundo lógico de claridades meridianas y mediterráneas sino de una visión tamizada por el proverbial haze policiaco en el que todo puede ser y no ser a la vez. Hasta es posible que Su alteza doña elisabeth le invitase al intruso a una taza de té. A los ingleses les gusta mirar al mundo a través de la niebla por eso son tan amantes de los fantasmas. Su lógica nop es nuestra lógica. Hasta hace poco medían la distancia en yardas y en pulgadas y el sistema métrico decimal no se implantó hasta el primero enero de 1973 que yo estaba allí para contarlo aquella mañana gris de año nuevo con bastante resaca.
De esta forma, nebulosos fueron los partes de guerra en la crisis de Malvinas. The British They are masters of desguise y expertos en el difícil arte de la propaganda. Por eso tienen al pueblo tan dominado. Nada tenías de peculiar que este Fagan del que poco sabemos quien es se haya enamorado platónicamente eso sí de su Reina. Sé preparó para su aventura varios meses, estudió el territorio, examinó mapas, consultó distancias, compulsó los turnos de guardia y los relevos. Su sueño era ver dormir a la augusta emperatriz de los ingleses y llegó hasta el tálamo. Las gacetillas evitan todo lo morboso. El Fagan no quería dormir con la reina sino ver como era en su medio natural porque las reinas también duermen y fuman y tienen que ir al baño y lo demás. ¿Un exhibicionista? Puede ser. But he was caught in the act por la guardia real y seguramente lo llevaron al cuartelillo por las orejas. ¿Un espía de los rusos? Tampoco se descarta. La morbidez y la discreción han tenido que entablar en Fleet Street un reñido encuentro para dar de lado detalles morbosos de tan paradójica situación. ¿Cómo se acuesta Isabel en enaguas, en picardías o en camisón sin sostén o con sostén y de que color eran las bragas? Dicen que color púrpura que es el color de la realeza y taparía sus vergüenzas con un taparrabos de armiño pues a lo mejor. También puede ser que Michael Fagan no sea más que un invento de la prensa para echar una cortina de humo, un tupido velo para distraer la atención del gran publico de la engorrosa cuestión de Malvinas que el personal no consulte la lista de bajas y que la Thatcher adarga en ristre y todos los portamisiles a bordo de la Home Fleet se ponga las bragas de hierro y les de a los argentinos de Galtieri una buena paliza. Una maniobra de distracción pues dicen que el gobierno de la Dama de Acero está a punto de caer. Y otra cuestión. La minuta y los haberes reales. Los ingleses se sienten muy monárquicos y consideran que para mantener la institución monárquica en condiciones hay que subirles el sueldo a los royals. De cualquier forma son maestros del disimulo estos ingleses. No sueltan prenda. Por lo pronto su graciosa majestad y persona tiene un Romeo que acude a la cita del jardin de buckingham con escala. ¿Será un amor de verano? ¿Un flirt? A la reina no se la conocen avatares y liviandades de ese calibre. Es una señorea muy seria a la que no le gustan los chistes verdes pero le pide que le cuente el príncipe de Edimburgo cómo anda de su estreñimiento. Pero esta es una extraña historia con final feliz. En otra parte el merodeador hubiera sido cosido a tiros por los escoltas pero estamos en GB y se le detuvo con mucha educación, le fueron leídos sus derechos y se le acusó de trespassing o allanamiento de morada. Un alabardero le dio un cigarrito marca capstan los que fuma la soberna y otro le invitó durante el interrogatorio a una taza de té. Menos no podía ser.
- ¿No tendrá un cigarrillo Majestad?
- No en este instante pero aguarde a ver si le quedan a la camarera.
Y de esa manera salió del dormitorio y avisó a seguridad. La reina saltó en camisón, se puso las zapatillas y fue a avisar. La señorita de compañía dormitaba ante una taza enorme de té.
- Espabile que tenemos visita, Maundy.
- ¿Audiencia a estas horas majestad? ¿? Nos han hundido algún submarino nuestro esos malditos argentinos?
El Bobby que guarda la puerta de la cámara regia tampoco se había enterado y se había quedado dormido sobre sus enormes zapatones de policía británico proverbiales por su tamaño. Dicen que la reina y la Dama de hierro no se pueden ver pero estas historias sirven para aliviar tensiones nacionales. En Inglaterra las grandes crisis suelen ser tormentas en una taza de té nada más. Y este aire deportivo que se da allí a la política a mí me da envidia. Para mi patria la quisiera. Cuentan que Mr Fagan salió de palacio fumándose un cigarrillo. En libertad con cargos. Las crónicas no refieren nada más.
25/06/07 1:47
2011-04-19
THE DEVIL IN HOLY WEEK (cuento semasantero en inglés)
A nightmare in Holy Thursday
My friend Empires was a man of many lectures and adventures a great reader, in his young days, he came across of a big short story by the Asturian writer Leopold Alas Clarin called EL DIABLO EN SEMANA SANTA (The devil in the holy week). And as it happens, what is in books later is in real life, fulfilling the norm by Aristotle’s quod est prius in sensu postea etiam in intellectu, but the other way round. The plot was about a man of good will going every day to the library. He was a dreamer; he lived by the Law of Books, in the middle of a country of illiterates, and the great ideals thinking that there was hope for human kind. By education. The inception of good morals. Reforms. The quest of excellence. He read and read. He dreamt and dreamt. One day-it was Good Thursday when Christ invited his disciple to the Passover dinner and instituted the rule of love, a new commandment I give to you that you love each other as I have loved you- went to the hall of the municipal books, choosing that endeavour because it was quiet and warm. The precept of loving each other was hardly followed by the so called Christians. And he lived in a small Spanish town by the name of Epicidia, when the believers brought the images of the passion to the streets and organized the big processions typical Spanish, the poor guy was a believer but he never was in a procession. Humbug he said, humbug and superstitions. Poor guy, he became the odd out man and was always under suspicion, our poor writer and reader he worked long hours in the pursuit of happiness and endeavoured at the local library. Religion was for him a free feeling of intimate and personal convictions of respect for the other criteria. That was why perhaps that his faith was more consistent and deeper. He loved that silence and seclusion and quietness, only transgressed by the drone of a solitary Spanish fly and the distant sound of the glare of drums and trumpets at the sacramental processions of Holy Week. When barefooted Nazarenes in black or crimson cassocks baring candles or carrying crosses went to the streets. You could also perceive the murmurs of their steps mingled with the strophes of the Miserere. Some of them trailed big chains cuffed to their barefoot. The spectacle was quite medieval. It was the Day of Atonement. For their sins they mounted crosses and pillories staging the different passages of the Crucifixion in real. It was a public manifestation of Catholicism and a signal of their conversion in a country where the Cross achieved victory over the Half Moon and the Menorah by the rule of sword. For fear of the Inquisition, they had to show and make the big performance demonstrating adherence to Orthodoxy, and that the reason why from the windows of many homes hung the ham’s big logs and strings of black puddings and mondongos. Physically, faith had to be proved, or demonstrated the allegiance of the culinary codes of Roman Catholicism which permitted the flesh of the pig at meals. Jews and Moslems, meanwhile, never ate pork. It was banned by their prophets as inmundus or forbidden animal. Christ said, it is true, that what made man pure or impure was not what he ingested through his mouth but what he expelled from it. The inmundus or unclean had to do more with immaterial things like bad thoughts dwelling inside or ill wishes. With that rule he destroyed the puritanical commandments of the Synagogue and he said beware of the false prophets. Don’t trust them, the devil is marauding like a lion and there are wolves disguised under sheep skins. The resurrected Christ is always in perpetual war versus antichrists. Here it is the perpetual fight of our Lord who was a rebel against conventions of satanically established forces of the Pharisees And there is the devil coming even in the Holy Week. However, the Conversos, in their zeal, went further up and appear more roman that the Romans and more popish than their own pope although in private they might remain to the religion of their father. That is why in Spain religion had been secularly a question of appearances. In essence, that was the justification of the holy week big show: to try to rub off the old stigma in a nation which endeavoured to find coherence in credos and forget the differences of believes of ethnical precedence (Goths, Jews, and Arabs). Spain was always a melting pot effervescent. A big olla. The locals were eager, every spring, to stage the drama of our Saviour in flesh as it were a reality show. You could touch it in the defiles of those agonising crucifixes all bruised, maimed and blooded in the procedures or “pasos” leading to Macabre Mountain or Golgotha or into presidium expiring in the cross or hand tied at the flagellation, or those vivid “dolorosas”, pasted; tearful faces majolica full of gold and silver and embroidery. You could smell it in Seville when Macarena our lady of Dolores tumbles in her throne entering Triana among of flood of flowers and the streets full of people clapping in emotion or in the verge of hysteria calling names to the statue saying props that for the non accustomed ear might sound irreverent: “Mira qué guapa llega la hija de puta”. And you could hear the whining echoes of the saetas a Morris song deriving from the ancient jarchas sung in Andalusia by the time of the caliphs. All that was very sensual that you could not think that you are in a holy week but in a paean festivity. The crowds seemed to want to touch the old goddess and have intercourse with divinity. But to our man, the character depicted by the magical prose of Clarin religion was quite an other thing, more abstract and inner feeling you can’t share with anyone but yourself. Also, he did not like capuchones dressed like the kukluxklan. Those figures clad in black with piercing eyes under their hoods beneath the tradition of the penanced by the inquisition frightened him. They were like the masks of carnival. Holy week the histrionic representation of Passover, the hooded cowl of the capuchones was the ballast of five centuries under the spell of the tribunal of faith, the holy office. Like the jewelled thrones and the trailing “peplum” or the Dolorosas. Oh yes the laughing devil was jumping to and fro under the cathedral gurgles. The inquisition is always in the back of our mind. For him the pathos and suffered of our lord at the cross had more consistency and purpose than a mere mystery play. His passion was a reminder of his love for men, a perpetual exhortation to repentance and also a signal of his presence in the earth until the end of time. The invincibility of the cross stems from celestial reasons rather tan earthly explanation or convictions. But evil was around even in holy week. That was the idea of demoniac presence at Holy week by Clarin. This criterion wasn’t shared by most of his countrymen. And the poor archivist and scholar was surrounded by suspicion and forebodings. His life was marked by incomprehension. Politically, he was also incorrect. Why? He dared to think by his own. They treated him as a the sheep out of flock, mad heretical. Society had its own caveats and is full of conventionalisms. You cant trod the line. You cant deviate from what is assumed and accepted by the hypocritical moral attitude. My friend Empires looked at the personage described by Clarin and saw in it the spitting image of himself: the odd man out, the freethinker, the mystic, the guy with his own ideas and visions. He didn’t join the mob, he didn’t adhere to the conventional norm. that was why he was crucified. Like his Lord and Master Jesus Christ.
On the balmy spring evening as he was leaving his beloved library he came across with one of the many processions organised by the Guild Hall. This one was one of flagellants. Man barefoot and naked backs came down flogging themselves wuith flagella and batons staging the scenes what happened two rhousand years ago in the Lithostros of Jersualem, oh vos omnes qui transtis per viam videte si es dolor quasi dolor meus. Jeremiah said. He stepped aside and looked in awe to the representation of the Holy Burial (Santo entierro) but he did not kneel down or made the signal of the cross, as perceptive, and for that he became under the suspicion of the local policeman. One of them who looked exactly like some of the Pilate bailiffs who executed the Lamb of god in Via Dolorosa. The town was full of henchmen and burrows. The gallows by coincidence in Epicidia stayed behind the old library building. It was called El Rollo. They were burnt at the staked after long processes to be condemned by the Inquisition.
- Eh you, why are not you in the processions. Are not you a Christian?-the myrmidon in blue police uniform said.
He did not know quite to answer.
-Em… I had to do a little work with my thesis, and need consult some books for my readings
-Didn’t you know, you bastard, you heathen you scum of the earth, what day today is?
-Holy Thursday, sir, and tomorrow Good Friday should be-, he answered meekly.
-I did not see you at the Oficios (liturgical services)
-Perhaps I thought it was not necessary. At home I read the Passion of our Lord.
-Esa misa no te vale (that Mass is not valid) are you a protestant or somewhat?
-No, sir, I am catholicus, apostolicus, romanus.
-Well then. You had to explain that to the Judge. Come with me.
In Epicidia the holy Tribunal of the Faith was suppressed in the XIX century but that infamous court is in open session in the mind of many ignorant. The warden asked him for the brief where he kept his books and jotters. Give those papers. He resisted the order and the local policemen called others of his cronies and they beat the archivist, the writer, the searcher, the dreamer, the mystic, on the spot. They handcuffed him and took him apprehended. Regardless of the exempting privilege of habeas corpus, was conducted to the police station or cuartelillo. There they beat him again, they harassed, impeached, called him names, slapped his face, and punched his nose. He suffered with patience the effrontery and in a way he was proud to undergo the same suffered of his Lord in the presidium. He realized that the Devil is at loose even in Holy Week The world since then is full of kangaroo courts. Unfortunately Anas and Caiphas, the holy sacerdotal class, the pontiffs had many emulated too long during 2000 years of history. And when the cockcrow sang three times the welcome to the new morning, they released him but he was in a poor state after the “paliza”. He could hardly walk and was all bruised. His hands, his head all his limbs ached but he could at the end by the grace of God reach his humble lodgings. And when he went back home and entered in the hall of his house, his wife seeing him as an Ecce Homo” said:
-Eh, you have been drinking again .
That was her salute. Poor guy! Even his wife wasn’t interested but such sort of things were quite frequent in Epicidia those days. There was no love.
13/02/2005 que corresponde al dia de hoy idus aprilis 2009 13
My friend Empires was a man of many lectures and adventures a great reader, in his young days, he came across of a big short story by the Asturian writer Leopold Alas Clarin called EL DIABLO EN SEMANA SANTA (The devil in the holy week). And as it happens, what is in books later is in real life, fulfilling the norm by Aristotle’s quod est prius in sensu postea etiam in intellectu, but the other way round. The plot was about a man of good will going every day to the library. He was a dreamer; he lived by the Law of Books, in the middle of a country of illiterates, and the great ideals thinking that there was hope for human kind. By education. The inception of good morals. Reforms. The quest of excellence. He read and read. He dreamt and dreamt. One day-it was Good Thursday when Christ invited his disciple to the Passover dinner and instituted the rule of love, a new commandment I give to you that you love each other as I have loved you- went to the hall of the municipal books, choosing that endeavour because it was quiet and warm. The precept of loving each other was hardly followed by the so called Christians. And he lived in a small Spanish town by the name of Epicidia, when the believers brought the images of the passion to the streets and organized the big processions typical Spanish, the poor guy was a believer but he never was in a procession. Humbug he said, humbug and superstitions. Poor guy, he became the odd out man and was always under suspicion, our poor writer and reader he worked long hours in the pursuit of happiness and endeavoured at the local library. Religion was for him a free feeling of intimate and personal convictions of respect for the other criteria. That was why perhaps that his faith was more consistent and deeper. He loved that silence and seclusion and quietness, only transgressed by the drone of a solitary Spanish fly and the distant sound of the glare of drums and trumpets at the sacramental processions of Holy Week. When barefooted Nazarenes in black or crimson cassocks baring candles or carrying crosses went to the streets. You could also perceive the murmurs of their steps mingled with the strophes of the Miserere. Some of them trailed big chains cuffed to their barefoot. The spectacle was quite medieval. It was the Day of Atonement. For their sins they mounted crosses and pillories staging the different passages of the Crucifixion in real. It was a public manifestation of Catholicism and a signal of their conversion in a country where the Cross achieved victory over the Half Moon and the Menorah by the rule of sword. For fear of the Inquisition, they had to show and make the big performance demonstrating adherence to Orthodoxy, and that the reason why from the windows of many homes hung the ham’s big logs and strings of black puddings and mondongos. Physically, faith had to be proved, or demonstrated the allegiance of the culinary codes of Roman Catholicism which permitted the flesh of the pig at meals. Jews and Moslems, meanwhile, never ate pork. It was banned by their prophets as inmundus or forbidden animal. Christ said, it is true, that what made man pure or impure was not what he ingested through his mouth but what he expelled from it. The inmundus or unclean had to do more with immaterial things like bad thoughts dwelling inside or ill wishes. With that rule he destroyed the puritanical commandments of the Synagogue and he said beware of the false prophets. Don’t trust them, the devil is marauding like a lion and there are wolves disguised under sheep skins. The resurrected Christ is always in perpetual war versus antichrists. Here it is the perpetual fight of our Lord who was a rebel against conventions of satanically established forces of the Pharisees And there is the devil coming even in the Holy Week. However, the Conversos, in their zeal, went further up and appear more roman that the Romans and more popish than their own pope although in private they might remain to the religion of their father. That is why in Spain religion had been secularly a question of appearances. In essence, that was the justification of the holy week big show: to try to rub off the old stigma in a nation which endeavoured to find coherence in credos and forget the differences of believes of ethnical precedence (Goths, Jews, and Arabs). Spain was always a melting pot effervescent. A big olla. The locals were eager, every spring, to stage the drama of our Saviour in flesh as it were a reality show. You could touch it in the defiles of those agonising crucifixes all bruised, maimed and blooded in the procedures or “pasos” leading to Macabre Mountain or Golgotha or into presidium expiring in the cross or hand tied at the flagellation, or those vivid “dolorosas”, pasted; tearful faces majolica full of gold and silver and embroidery. You could smell it in Seville when Macarena our lady of Dolores tumbles in her throne entering Triana among of flood of flowers and the streets full of people clapping in emotion or in the verge of hysteria calling names to the statue saying props that for the non accustomed ear might sound irreverent: “Mira qué guapa llega la hija de puta”. And you could hear the whining echoes of the saetas a Morris song deriving from the ancient jarchas sung in Andalusia by the time of the caliphs. All that was very sensual that you could not think that you are in a holy week but in a paean festivity. The crowds seemed to want to touch the old goddess and have intercourse with divinity. But to our man, the character depicted by the magical prose of Clarin religion was quite an other thing, more abstract and inner feeling you can’t share with anyone but yourself. Also, he did not like capuchones dressed like the kukluxklan. Those figures clad in black with piercing eyes under their hoods beneath the tradition of the penanced by the inquisition frightened him. They were like the masks of carnival. Holy week the histrionic representation of Passover, the hooded cowl of the capuchones was the ballast of five centuries under the spell of the tribunal of faith, the holy office. Like the jewelled thrones and the trailing “peplum” or the Dolorosas. Oh yes the laughing devil was jumping to and fro under the cathedral gurgles. The inquisition is always in the back of our mind. For him the pathos and suffered of our lord at the cross had more consistency and purpose than a mere mystery play. His passion was a reminder of his love for men, a perpetual exhortation to repentance and also a signal of his presence in the earth until the end of time. The invincibility of the cross stems from celestial reasons rather tan earthly explanation or convictions. But evil was around even in holy week. That was the idea of demoniac presence at Holy week by Clarin. This criterion wasn’t shared by most of his countrymen. And the poor archivist and scholar was surrounded by suspicion and forebodings. His life was marked by incomprehension. Politically, he was also incorrect. Why? He dared to think by his own. They treated him as a the sheep out of flock, mad heretical. Society had its own caveats and is full of conventionalisms. You cant trod the line. You cant deviate from what is assumed and accepted by the hypocritical moral attitude. My friend Empires looked at the personage described by Clarin and saw in it the spitting image of himself: the odd man out, the freethinker, the mystic, the guy with his own ideas and visions. He didn’t join the mob, he didn’t adhere to the conventional norm. that was why he was crucified. Like his Lord and Master Jesus Christ.
On the balmy spring evening as he was leaving his beloved library he came across with one of the many processions organised by the Guild Hall. This one was one of flagellants. Man barefoot and naked backs came down flogging themselves wuith flagella and batons staging the scenes what happened two rhousand years ago in the Lithostros of Jersualem, oh vos omnes qui transtis per viam videte si es dolor quasi dolor meus. Jeremiah said. He stepped aside and looked in awe to the representation of the Holy Burial (Santo entierro) but he did not kneel down or made the signal of the cross, as perceptive, and for that he became under the suspicion of the local policeman. One of them who looked exactly like some of the Pilate bailiffs who executed the Lamb of god in Via Dolorosa. The town was full of henchmen and burrows. The gallows by coincidence in Epicidia stayed behind the old library building. It was called El Rollo. They were burnt at the staked after long processes to be condemned by the Inquisition.
- Eh you, why are not you in the processions. Are not you a Christian?-the myrmidon in blue police uniform said.
He did not know quite to answer.
-Em… I had to do a little work with my thesis, and need consult some books for my readings
-Didn’t you know, you bastard, you heathen you scum of the earth, what day today is?
-Holy Thursday, sir, and tomorrow Good Friday should be-, he answered meekly.
-I did not see you at the Oficios (liturgical services)
-Perhaps I thought it was not necessary. At home I read the Passion of our Lord.
-Esa misa no te vale (that Mass is not valid) are you a protestant or somewhat?
-No, sir, I am catholicus, apostolicus, romanus.
-Well then. You had to explain that to the Judge. Come with me.
In Epicidia the holy Tribunal of the Faith was suppressed in the XIX century but that infamous court is in open session in the mind of many ignorant. The warden asked him for the brief where he kept his books and jotters. Give those papers. He resisted the order and the local policemen called others of his cronies and they beat the archivist, the writer, the searcher, the dreamer, the mystic, on the spot. They handcuffed him and took him apprehended. Regardless of the exempting privilege of habeas corpus, was conducted to the police station or cuartelillo. There they beat him again, they harassed, impeached, called him names, slapped his face, and punched his nose. He suffered with patience the effrontery and in a way he was proud to undergo the same suffered of his Lord in the presidium. He realized that the Devil is at loose even in Holy Week The world since then is full of kangaroo courts. Unfortunately Anas and Caiphas, the holy sacerdotal class, the pontiffs had many emulated too long during 2000 years of history. And when the cockcrow sang three times the welcome to the new morning, they released him but he was in a poor state after the “paliza”. He could hardly walk and was all bruised. His hands, his head all his limbs ached but he could at the end by the grace of God reach his humble lodgings. And when he went back home and entered in the hall of his house, his wife seeing him as an Ecce Homo” said:
-Eh, you have been drinking again .
That was her salute. Poor guy! Even his wife wasn’t interested but such sort of things were quite frequent in Epicidia those days. There was no love.
13/02/2005 que corresponde al dia de hoy idus aprilis 2009 13
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