With this spring in his step he was soon up behind the town, where the sound of running water nearby, the braying of burros and the desultory tinkling of bells, and the distant voices of people below reached him where he paused to sniff, and then stood still inhaling the pines above him and the delicious freshness of cow manure, like a man rediscovering senses long forgotten under the abuses of cities. Then he was off again, and when he reached the road bounded by cypress trees, he hardly paused to cross himself at the first station he encountered as he hurried up the hill toward the white walls of the cemetery.
The forecourt, as he entered, was flooded with a riot of flamenco music from the radio in the house of the resident watchman, to one side there and almost hidden behind the unfurled hilarity of the week's wash. Nonetheless he could hear voices beyond the next gate, where a small stone crucifixion drew his eye as he approached and went through, with a quick glance up at it and a stab, more a parabola than a cross over his chest, for the figure carved in what appeared at that moment full abandon to a dance which the music accompanied. Within, the bóvedas mounted on both sides, three, four, five vaults high, decorated with bead flowers and metal wreaths, icons and wilted nosegays, broken glass protecting photographs, and all of them numbered, with names, and ages caught up in infancy and childhood, many between fourteen and twenty, and few to sixty. Straight ahead stood a separate mausoleum, a cross atop it, surrounded by a chain and four corner columns mounting stone faces, the girl, the woman, the hag, and the skull.
— Ausculta. .
— Mira señor. . aïee. .
The argument going on in two languages would hardly have made sense in one, and the newcomer arrived to enter with what sounded like a third, for one of the men was the watchman whom he'd come to see. The other was a feverish-eyed man whom he studied sharply for fear, as he confessed later, that he might be a Rumanian, since the language he spoke sounded as if it might have been anything. (It proved to be Late Latin, being garlanded with whatever tendrils and sprays came to hand.) Both were waving their arms at the bóveda beside them, where an unmarked vault and one containing nothing but the wet end of a broom stood side by side.
— My father doesn't make mistakes! the feverish-eyed man suddenly burst out.
— Ah. . speaks English?
— Yes, I… you, who are you? Listen, do you speak. . can you talk to him? My mother's in there, and I… he tells me. . Here, you talk to him. Here she is, I've written her name down, here, he went on rapidly, and handed a rumpled card to the shock-haired man, who stared at it. — Yes, yes, there that's her name, she. . What's the matter, can't you read it?
— This. . this is your mother's name?
— Yes, can't you see? And she…
— But. . what's she doing here? How'd she get in here? The card quivered, and became damp in his hand. He reached up as though he were going to smooth back the shock of black hair, but his raised hand dropped and he crossed himself as he handed the card back, and crossed himself again.
— Well that's what I want to know. I mean, there's no name on this vault, there's no mark, there's no way to tell. .
Then the sacristan started, and spoke as though he could not stop: la guerra was the word to occur most often; next to that, los rojos. All this time Mr. Yak studied the figure beside him closely, as though it might be a ghost, or the leavings of one, the thin lips and nervous blinking eyes, hands at his sides opening and closing on nothing. Mr. Yak was agitated enough himself, tugging at his mustache as he listened to the sacristan, and then pressing it anxiously back in place, searching the face beside him for some resemblance he hoped not to find, while the other simply stood, blinking at the unidentified vault and then up at the brilliant sky where low-flying gray clouds exaggerated the vastness of the sheer blue and white beyond.
— España… no hay mas que una! burst the music in the court, as the sacristan gasped for breath, and Mr. Yak turned to interpret, — In this war they had, these reds came in and turned everything upside-down, some places they even opened up some coffins and stood the bodies up all over the place. . even down in the church he says they turned everything upside-down, even the párroco, the town priest here, they turned him upside-down too. .
— Coño, mira. . The sacristan recovered his breath, and with it his stream of Andahisian enthusiasm; but he was interrupted by a proposition which left him wide-eyed and open-mouthed: Mr. Yak had, after all, come here on business himself, and now, to show his calm as he spoke of it, he reached to a niche nearby to pluck a boutonnière. He had some difficulty in breaking the wire stem, but by the time he'd done speaking he had the spotted paper rose in his buttonhole, and the sacristan, though he was staring transfixed at this gay embellishment, seemed not to see it for the horror of what he heard. Even the wad of five-peseta notes which reached his hand did not break the sacristan's cataleptic stance, though it loosed his tongue enough for, — Ya no! Ya no!. . and he commenced to chatter on about the párroco, and a funeral cortege which was imminent, to listen, while he caught his breath, and then bound round the corner of the bóveda, pointing, — Ya viene! Ya viene!
Sure enough, below, and as yet beyond the first station of the cross, the coronation approached. Still Mr. Yak seemed in no hurry. He said a few more words to the sacristan, and then sauntered off among the bóvedas, reading ages and dates on the tiers of vaults like a man on a shopping tour. The paper rose, slightly disintegrated and faded in spots by drops of rain, added a jaunty note to the general trimness of his person, which the plexiglas collar so nicely defined. He might have worn a hat, but for fear his hair come off with it when it was removed, and now, as the sacristan watched them out the first gate, the wind stood his black hair up on end, and he grabbed for it. As for the figure beside him, the sacristan had earlier noted how the man's coat stood out on both sides like a pack-saddle, but said nothing, only stared, as he did now after them: seen from behind, as they passed through the second gate, they looked like two old men.
The funeral pomp was black, led slowly up the rock-studded road by the párroco, an old man with a boy on either side carrying their standards. The horses wore black plumes on their harness and black net halfway to the ground, and the open carriage they drew mounted to a black cross pinnacle- over the exposed casket. The man seated before, driving the horses, and him up behind between the wide rear wheels, both wore black hats square over old unshaven faces, derelict decorations like those awaiting them above. The men who followed carrying their hats, and their heads bowed, stepped round the horses' droppings which were left behind steaming in the sun. Mr. Yak crossed himself, three times, as the procession passed.
Part way up the rough road a little girl in a green dress followed on a cycle, which she turned in uncertain circles before the two figures descending, and looked them over curiously before she went back down slowly before them. — How old do you think she is? Mr. Yak demanded suddenly, studying her with a strange appraising look.
— Ten, maybe.
— Yes. Just about. Just about. His companion shuddered beside him. — What's the matter?. . it's not your funeral. They passed the sixth station silently. — What's that you've got in your pockets, they stick out like that.
— Oranges.
Mr. Yak nodded, as the oranges bumped against him. At the second station he brought out, — So that's your mother up there, you came all the way to visit her grave?