Euskal Idazleen Elkartea

Lertxundi Esnal, Anjel

Narrative (short story and novel)

Jose Larreina edo hamalau heriotzena (The Story about Jose Larreina or the fourteen murders)

I

The sun has long since given the best of its warmth, and the cold, with ever-increasing rawness, is approaching freezing point. Jose Larreina of Mendaro is not looking forward to spending the night under the stars at all. But where is he to stay? He sniffs the air just like a hunting dog. He can smell burning wood! There must be a fireplace nearby. Sniffing the air he goes about five hundred metres up a steep path until he reaches the place that is the source of the smoke. On such a pitch-black night this is no hour to go knocking on doors, but Jose is embittered by the cold and hunger. As he raps on the door, his natural good sense tells him that he has to say the customary pious words.

The reception Jose gets is not at all bad: the inhabitants of Altzibar do not wait to find out about the generosity of whoever comes knocking at the door before they act generously.

After building up the dying fire, the inhabitants of Altzibar provide the person who has come begging with everything: cured meat, cornbread, wine. Jose Larreina crosses himself before starting to have dinner. He not only eats, but also drinks with moderation. Jose's good sense is in control, because it tells him: when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

When he finishes his dinner, Martin, the owner of Altzibar, offers his bedroom to such a polite beggar, because this is no weather for sleeping in the hayloft. The beggar would die of cold there.

Once in the bedroom Martin opens a cupboard and takes out a couple of blankets. Something glistens in the candlelight. The cupboard key, a lock, the doorjamb, the hinge, a button on a shirt hanging up. Goodness knows. Jose is confused all of a sudden, an angry swarm of bees is stinging his brain, a sharp pain that would turn even the wisest person mad takes control of himà Taking from his belt the sharp knife he uses to kill boar piglets, he plunges it right into the heart of the generous man who only ten minutes before has offered him his bed. Martin looks at Jose with a weak, gesture of surprise. In his arms the thick blanket somebody had brought him from Palencia turns red with blood.

The incomprehension in Martin's look lasts only a few seconds. Making a painful effort he throws the blanket at Jose and has the strength to start to flee. But he collapses by the door of the room. Jose searches the cupboard more roughly than when a boar attacks the dogs that encircle it.

He finds nothing.

In the meantime, Martin's daughter approaches the room, because she has heard a great commotion. Seeing her father in that pool of blood, she starts to cry for help, for a priest, as she implores heaven for mercy. Jose looks at her, just as if he does not understand what he has just done. Jose's look is a burnt-out one, as if enveloped by a flame that has just revived out of the ashes. He grins inanely at the girl as if unable to grasp what the girl or he, Jose, or the owner of the house, by then breathing his last, are doing there. Jose resembles a madman, his face is distorted, the expression on it terrifying. The light of the candle shines on him fully and frequent draughts produce mad familiars, distorted familiars, terrifying familiars, which play with Jose's shadow on the wall behind and on the ceiling.

The girl then screams again. Creases appear on Jose's forehead and temples as if his blood vessels are about to burst.

Taking an old axe that is lying nearby he deals the girl a blow on the head. The sound of bone, no shout. The girl ends up beside her father.

In the meantime, the inane grin on Jose's face does not fade, either. Such a young girl! Hearing at dinner that she is twenty-three caused that grin. So could the grin have been the flame of regret that always lurks in the marrow of the cruellest of men? Jose looks at the two bodies. He shoves the girl's body to one side with his foot and leaves the room. Like a madman he goes all over the farm in search of gold. In his quest he sees the farmer's wife opening the kitchen door after finishing her work there. The woman does not appear to have noticed anything. Jose grabs her by her collar and starts to shake her asking, `Where is the gold?' `Where is the gold?'

The naivety of the farmer's wife overcomes her fear: `You know there is no money here.' Jose drags the woman to the place where her husband and daughter lie. She must tell him where the gold was, if she does not want to end up as dead as the others.

II

What did Jose do with Katalina? Such ordinary things of little importance require no explanations. The fact is Jose left the Altzibar farm the next day in the morning. The sky was bright blue. The meadows and the brambles were white with frost.

The atrocities that had befallen the Altzibar household shocked the whole valley, and armed groups of men combed the nearby mountains and valleys. The frost remained for days and afforded them an excellent opportunity to find the murderer, but no one uncovered any signs of him. But by that time Jose was nearing the gates of Mendaro. He was almost home. Anyway, if anyone had seen him, the way he walked or the stupid grin on his face would not have betrayed the atrocity he had committed only a few hours before. But as he went into Mendaro, he could smell men armed with shotguns and pitchforks coming down the Arno mountainside after him. His good sense told him that the Chapel of St Anthony was a good place to stop and offer a few prayers, and when in Romeà Those pursuing a murderer do not take any notice of pietistic beggars. So he went inside the chapel, knelt before the altar and that was where he remained devoutly until he heard the group of men moving away. But as he came out, he chanced upon one of the shotgun bearers who had lagged behind and who had been in the group of men. In that tense moment Jose's good sense prompted him to put his fingertips in the holy-water stoup to cross himself. However, the water was frozen. His hand scratched the layer of ice more and more nervously in search of holy water so that he could cross himself, but it was no use. In the absence of water he removed his hand without crossing himself. What happened did not take two seconds but it was enough to awaken the suspicions of the man with the shotgun, and suspecting that the beggar had hidden something in the holy-water stoup, the man with the gun shouted `Stop!'

III

Whoever has the ugliest of passions when they are discovered does not pass up an opportunity to obtain honour in atrocity. So after Jose has complied with the judge's request and has told him all about the Altzibar murders just as he remembers them and when he sees that the judge is about to conclude his interrogation, he tells him with a hint of pride: `I have more murders!'

Once when he was roaming around Catalonia he murdered the five members of a single family in the middle of the night. Jose tells the judge that he killed another six by the roadside. They are the ones he remembers. There may have been more, he does not remember, his blood vessels are nearly bursting and he cannot remember, but the three in Altzibar, the eight in Lleida and the six by the roadside, he remembers fourteen, that there were probably more, he particularly remembers the Altzibar ones, if they had given him the money they had hidden away, he would not have killed them, he would not have killed the Lleida ones either, nor the six by the roadside either, is it so difficult to comply with one's demands? Anyhow, even if they had given him what he had demanded, he would have killed the fourteen, whenever his blood vessels are on the point of bursting, his good sense does not help him, his good sense tells him nothing, his good sense leaves him alone, as free as a boar.

-Good sense? -the judge asks him.

-My lord, your honour will also know the benefits of acting when in Rome..., but when my blood vessels are about to burst, good sense abandons me.