While the Women are Sleeping

the life and death of marcelino iturriaga

November 22 1957 was very overcast. A dense, inert, impenetrable mass of cloud filled the horizon, and a storm was threatening.

The day was of particular significance to me. A year ago exactly, I had left my loved ones, never to return. It was the first anniversary of my death. In the morning, my wife, Esperancita, had brought a bouquet of flowers, which she very carefully placed on top of me. I rather wished she hadn’t because the flowers blocked my view, but the twenty-second of each month was her day for bringing me fresh flowers and, on alternate months, the two boys came as well.

It was their month to visit, but it being the first anniversary, I imagine Esperancita preferred to come alone. For this same reason, the bunch of carnations was larger than usual and so blocked my view even more. I was able to get a good look at Esperancita though. She was a little plumper than last month and clearly no longer the slender, graceful, agile girl to whom I had once felt so attracted. She moved rather awkwardly and clumsily, and the black mourning clothes she was still wearing really didn’t suit her at all. Dressed like that, she reminded me very much of my mother-in-law, for Esperancita’s hair was no longer jet black, but was beginning to go white around her forehead and temples. I remembered how she had looked the last time I saw her with my eyes open, and along with that scene, which had taken place a year ago in my apartment in Calle Barquillo, my whole life rose up before me too.

I was born in Madrid in 1921, in a small apartment on Calle de Narváez. My father owned the pharmacy downstairs, above which hung a sign saying: ITURRIAGA. PHARMACIST, and just below that in smaller letters: ‘We also sell Sweets’, which was why my brother and I spent a large part of the day in the store. The rest of the time we were stuck in a dirty old classroom in the local school, where one teacher taught fourteen of us boys all the subjects then on the curriculum. The classes were dull in the extreme, and we either dozed or flicked little balls of paper at each other.

My mother was a plump, placid woman, who always helped my brother and me whenever we had a problem or when my father, after a day of poor sales, vented his frustration on us.

My father was a most irascible man, especially when he was in a bad mood, and I always thought he would have been far better suited to being a butcher or something, rather than a pharmacist.

I stayed at that school in Calle de Narváez until I was fifteen, and then the Civil War broke out, but that passed me by as just another of life’s events. It brought neither me nor my family any great losses. My brother fought at the front, but survived unscathed and returned home full of a patriotism and a pride in the right-wing Nationalist victory that I never shared. Then I began a degree in economics, which took me eight years to complete, much to the displeasure of my father, who disapproved of all those delays and repeated courses. Despite everything, though, I think my time as a student was the happiest and liveliest of my brief life. I had fun, studied very little and met Esperancita. She was rather shy with boys, but was nonetheless affectionate and obliging. We used to go to the cinema or the circus or for a walk, and ended up spending nearly every afternoon or evening together. Two years after finishing my degree, I asked Esperancita to marry me. She said ‘Yes,’ and two years later, my first son, Miguel, was born, and two years after that, Gregorito, a name I never liked, but which I had to accept at the insistence of my mother-in-law, who was called Gregoria. Besides, I always thought the name ‘Gregorito Iturriaga Aguirre’ was too long and had too many rs.

Now that I think about it, I don’t believe I married Esperancita for love, but because I thought she would be a real help to me in my work at the bank. As it turned out, however, she wasn’t much help at all, because she took bringing up the children far too seriously and spent all day with them. I wasn’t particularly happy with her, but I wouldn’t say I was particularly unhappy either.

Living with us were my mother-in-law and my father, who couldn’t stand the sight of each other, but since they had to, and given that the apartment was fairly small, they spent all day fighting and arguing over stupid things about which they couldn’t — or, rather, shouldn’t — have argued, because they knew almost nothing about them. This, along with Esperancita shouting at Manuela the maid and the children crying, made home unbearable, and the bank seemed to me a paradise. With seven mouths to feed, I was always glad to work overtime, but I did so largely because it gave me more quiet time to myself.

My mother died four years after the war ended, and she was, I believe, the only person I was ever really fond of. I was much more upset by her death than by that of my father, for whom I had never felt any real filial affection.

My death came as pretty much of a shock to everyone. In August 1956, I began to experience intense stabbing pains in my chest. Alarmed, I consulted my brother, who was a doctor. He reassured me, saying that it was probably just the after-effects of a bad cold or a sore throat.

He wrote me out a prescription for some pills, and the pain went away until 16 November, when it attacked with even more fury than in August. I started taking the pills again, but this time they brought me no relief, and the 21st found me in bed with a high temperature, lung cancer and no hope of surviving.

That was an extremely distressing day. The pain was terrible and no one could do anything to relieve it. I could vaguely make out Esperancita, who was kneeling by my bed, weeping, while my mother-in-law, Dona Gregoria, patted her fondly and consolingly on the back. The children barely moved at all, unable to understand what was going on. My brother and his wife were sitting down as if waiting for me to die so that they could make their exit from that tedious, melodramatic scene. My boss and some of my colleagues were standing in the doorway, watching me pityingly, and whenever they saw that I was looking at them, they would give very forced friendly smiles. At six o’clock on the evening of the 22nd, when the fever intensified, I tried to get out of bed, but fell back against the pillow, dead. At the moment of death, I felt all my pain and suffering vanish and I wanted to tell my family and friends that I was no longer in pain, that I was alive and well, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t speak or move or open my eyes, even though I could see and hear everything going on around me. My mother-in-law said:

‘He’s dead.’

‘May he rest in peace,’ chorused the others.

I saw how my brother and his wife immediately withdrew, once they had told Esperancita that they would take care of the funeral, due to take place the following day. Gradually, everyone else went too, and I was left alone. I didn’t know what to do. I could think, see and hear, therefore I existed, therefore I was alive, and the next day they were going to bury me. I tried desperately to move, but couldn’t. Then I realised that I was dead, that beyond death there was nothing, and all that remained for me was to lie in my grave forever, not breathing, but alive; without eyes, but able to see; without ears, but able to hear.

The next day, they put me in a black coffin and then in the hearse that took me to the cemetery. Not many people turned up. After the brief service, everyone left and I was alone. At first, I didn’t like it here at all, but I’m used to it now, and I enjoy the silence. I see Esperancita once a month, and the boys every other month, and that’s all: this is my life and my death, where there is nothing.

(1968)