B0040702LQ EBOK (32 page)

As the minutes passed, he learned to move his limbs, to
coordinate, to apply the right pressure with each arm. He
learned to move his fingers and used them to grasp the window ledge. Some time later, he eventually managed to raise his
trunk. He considered that a triumph. Now he was sitting, with
his legs under him and his left shoulder leaning on the stretch
of wall under the window. His family were watching him
from a corner with a mixture of admiration and panic. Finally,
he knelt and, with his hands on the window ledge so as not to
fall, he looked out of the window. On the other side of the
road he could clearly make out a part of the building opposite,
a long building, made of dark material, with symmetrical
windows to relieve the monotony of the facade. The rain had
not stopped, but it was falling now in isolated drops that could
be seen splashing onto the pavement. With one last effort he
managed to push himself up and stand. This vertical posture
delighted and alarmed him. He felt dizzy, and he had to lean
on the wall to avoid falling; suddenly his legs felt weak, so he
sank gently down until he was kneeling on the floor once
again. He began to walk on his hands and knees towards the
door. It was ajar. He swung it open, with such force (he had
problems working out the exact effort required for each
movement) that it hit the wall, rebounded and nearly closed. He tried again, less brusquely this time. Once he had got the
door open, he went out into the corridor, still on his hands
and knees.

Would there be humans in any part of the house? If he met
some now (he supposed) they would not do him any harm: he
looked like one of them. The idea fascinated him. He would
not have to run away for fear they would trample him underfoot. It was the first positive aspect of his transformation. He
could see only one drawback: they would want to speak to
him and he would be unable to answer. Out in the corridor,
with the help of his arms, he pulled himself upright again.
This time he did not feel so dizzy. Little by little (his legs were
taking his weight better now), he walked along the corridor,
his confidence growing. At the end of the corridor there was a
door. He opened it. There was the bathroom. The toilet, the
bidet, the bathtub, and two washbasins, each with its own
mirror. He had never seen himself, but he knew right away
that this was him, naked, fat and soft. Judging by the height his
face came up to on the mirror, he was not an adult. Was he a
child? A teenager? It was odd to see himself naked, though he
could not explain why, because walking around naked had
never bothered him before. Was it the grotesqueness of his
body, all those kilos and kilos of flesh and that flabby face
covered in acne? Who was he? What did he do? He wandered
through the house, growing steadier on his feet. He opened
the door of the room next to the bathroom. There was a pair
of skates by the bed. And loads of pennants on the wall. There
was also a desk, exercise books and school books. And a set of
shelves with comics, a football and photos. One was a photo
of him (he recognised himself immediately, looking just as he
did in the bathroom, plump, with acne, dressed for five-a-side
football, in a blue jersey with a white stripe down each sleeve).
In the cupboard he found some clothes. He took out a pair of
underpants, a vest, a sports shirt, tracksuit bottoms, socks and
gym shoes. He put them on.

When he got to the door of the flat, he looked out through
the spy hole. Outside there was a landing, and the doors to
three more flats. He went back to the living room and ran his finger along the spines of the few books on the shelves. He
stroked a china vase. He pressed a button on the radio. The
music was loud, and the words incomprehensible:

He pressed the button again. Silence. He sat on the sofa.
Picked up the remote control. Turned on the TV. He flipped
through the channels, sharpened the colour contrast as far as it
would go, turned the volume up to maximum. Then down to
minimum. It was easy. A book lay open on the sofa. He picked
it up, convinced he would not understand a word, and yet as
soon as he laid eyes on it he read it with no great difficulty. `I
have moved. I used to live in the Hotel Duke on a corner of
Washington Square. My family has lived there for generations
and I mean at least two or three hundred generations.' He
closed the book, and just as he was putting it back where it
had been, he remembered that he had found it open, not
closed. He picked it up again and, as he was searching for the
right page, he heard the sound of a key in the lock. It was a
man and a woman, clearly adults. The man said `Hi'. The
woman came over to him, kissed him on the cheek, looked
him over and asked: `How come your trousers are inside out?'
He looked at the tracksuit bottoms. How was he to know they
were inside out? He shrugged. `Have you done your homework?' asked the man. Oh no, homework! He imagined (it
was as if he remembered) an earlier time in which there was
no homework and no trousers inside out. `Hurry up.' It was
the woman again. He stood up reluctantly. Before going to
the bedroom to do the homework, he went to the kitchen,
opened the fridge, took out a bottle of Diet Pepsi and, as he
was struggling to open it (he was still clumsy with his hands),
he spilled half of it over the floor. Before they could tell him
off, he went to the broom cupboard and, as he was getting out
a mop, he saw cowering against the wall three beetles, which froze for a moment then tried to run away. With a certain
distaste, he put his right foot on top of them and pressed down
hard until he heard the crunch.

© Joaquim Monzo

Translated by Annella McDermott

Quim Monzo (Barcelona, 1952) has been a cartoonist,
scriptwriter for radio, films and television, graphic designer
and war correspondent. He writes in both Catalan and
Castilian and has won several important literary prizes, the
most recent being the Premio de la Critica Serra d'Or. Monzo
has published several collections of articles, three novels:
L'udol del griso al aire de les clavegueres (1976), Benzina (1983)
and La magnitud de la tragedia (1989), as well as several
collections of short stories: Self Service (1977), Uf, va dir ell
(1978), Olivetti, Moulinex, Chaffoteaux et Maury (1980), L'illa de
Maians (1985), El perque de tot plegat (1992). These two stories
were first published in Catalan in Guadalajara (Quaderns
Crema, 1996).

One day, a preacher belonging to one of the many minor
religions that people the earth, too small to be statistically
interesting, but whose membership had recently grown considerably (enough to cause alarm amongst the supporters of
other sects), started preaching at the top of his voice to a
packed audience of keen new adherents, who, hanging on his
every prophetic word, felt enlightenment gradually growing
within them and finally fell into an ecstatic trance.

This happened one Sunday morning in a large enclosed
space to which only members of the faith had access. The
preacher was the most worthy custodian of that faith, quite
rightly, since he was both its current leader and its keenest
disseminator.

The formal service provided a break in the ceremony that
took place every Sunday at the same time, and the believers
gathered there sat down as usual on their respective benches
in order to listen attentively, in a relaxed manner, to the words
addressed to them.

The fiery preacher had barely raised his arms and hurled
forth the flames of his first words - fire in his very voice -
when, doubtless filled by a unanimous fervour, as if impelled
by an invisible force, the congregation again fell to their knees
and remained there, motionless, their heads bowed, their
hands covering their faces, while the mystic apostle continued
his sublime sermon as he had begun it, with all the untamed
energy of a wild waterfall.

Drunk on celestial choler, full of an irresistible authority,
giving ceaseless vent to the lava of his thoughts, in unequivocal yet parabolic language, he was saying:

`I exhort you, brothers and sisters, to share in the redemptive action of personal sacrifices. I exhort you to expose yourselves to the pyre of expiatory sacrifice. But take note:
our faith requires a sacrifice without tragedy; a simple, silent
sacrifice without preambles or rituals. It can be public, if you
wish, but uncalculated, without one eye on sainthood, with
no mea culpa, no pomp and no pride.'

He paused to swallow hard and no sooner had the silence
absorbed the echoes of his last words and the faithful raised
devout eyes to the pulpit, than his voice rang out again in such
potent tones that all heads simultaneously bent again, eyes
closed, as once more the preacher's voice engulfed the silence.

`I say unto you: Make haste! Plunge into the real swamps
and find peace there, wrapped in the suffocating slime! What
we need is a humble sacrifice, a sacrifice that will leave neither
trace nor name. One that is entirely unlike Christ's sacrifice.
To use a clear, precise image, it should be a subterranean
sacrifice, a sacrifice made with downcast eyes. The cross is a
sacrifice with its face to the skies, an elevated sacrifice in every
sense of the word. It was a vertical sacrifice, worthy of the Son
of Man. Was it not a mirror of every sacrifice, into which man
looked and chose not to recognise himself? Now, I am not
asking you to look in that mirror tarnished by the foul breath
of sin. In this day and age of degenerate humanity, we need a
sacrifice befitting the lower depths, because we are not
worthy of Christ's example. Christ was the roof of humanity
and we are merely the lower depths. Let our sacrifice then be
worthy of us. Make haste, make haste! Seek out the caves ...!'

He said all this with his arms raised, but no one could see
his arms, for they were still sitting with bowed heads, paralysed
by religious devotion. This time, the faithful knew that the
preacher had come to the end of his Sunday sermon, but they
did not stir, so touched were they by what they had just heard.
Did they understand it? More than that. An overwhelming
silence weighed upon the meditations of the faithful. Each
body was questioning his or her soul about the correct meaning of that parable of the lower depths. A most unexpected
sermon!

In the middle of the chapel, amongst all the bowed heads,
one man suddenly rises to his feet. For a short time, he stands there, extraordinarily erect, powerful and hard, as firm as if he
were nailed to the floor. Everyone is turned towards him, their
heads looking up mechanically as if operated in unison by a
spring.

The man leaves the row of benches. He heads for the door.
As if borne along by an imperious impulse, he goes out of the
building, leaving the doors half-open. The preacher emerges
from his own meditations, hidden from the eyes of the faithful;
he gets up from his seat and watches the solitary withdrawal
of that one member of the congregation. At last, he descends
from the pulpit, but no one takes any notice of him now. They
have seen the man walk slowly to the door. They have seen
him disappear. The whole congregation shudders. They saw
him get to his feet and stand there motionless. They all stood
up when the man opened the door to go out. Without leaving
their places, they stare out of the door: the man, with deliberate step, is moving off into the distance. Can they still see him
or not? He is heading towards the countryside.