Chromos by Felipe Alfau

Author:Felipe Alfau
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781564782045
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
Published: 1998-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

By now I have allowed these things to fall out of chronological step, but it is just as well. Possibly the order in which incidents happen may not always be as acceptable as the pattern they form when seen in their totality. But be that as it may, I go back now to things I got ahead of in this haphazard account of recollections.

After the death of his landlady, there followed several unpleasant days demanding Garcia’s attention to details he did not like. A will turned up which left to him the house where they lived and also most of her money, but Garcia suffered an attack of Castilian pride and wouldn’t hear of it. I suspect that it was due to fear created by seeing Latins often depicted as graceful pimps and also in the way of an atonement for his past weakness. He had been weak, allowing his impractical dreamy nature and circumstances which he considered himself incapable of conquering to place him in the suspected position of a man living off a woman, a woman of whom he had felt ashamed, but not ashamed enough to do anything about his position, and he had even allowed that shame to carry over to her very end. Perhaps he had been only human but he was in the mood to judge himself sternly. In his own eyes he had been weak in her life and weak at her death, and now he was twice as ashamed of himself. He knew that she had a sister in Pennsylvania and communicated with her. She came with her husband and at first they were unfriendly and belligerent and threatened to bring matters to court without bothering to find out his attitude in the matter, but when finally it penetrated their minds and they realized that he was giving up everything in their favor, they became all beaming and effusive courteousness, calling him a fine Spanish gentleman and scholar, and the husband arranged everything with a lawyer and paid for all expenses, funereal and otherwise, mentioning that Garcia was in no condition to be bothered with sad financial details and showing the generosity of one who insists jovially that this round is on him.

Then Garcia, who had brought to my place what he considered his valuable personal property, most of which were his manuscripts and notes and his typewriter, said that he was going away, but he did not say where and I did not ask. I knew him well. The man was ashamed after the ordeal, like one unmasked, to have his position openly and officially discussed as the object of legal consideration when he signed his claims away. He was ashamed the way one who has suffered an accident is ashamed of his torn, dirty undergarments exposed to the public gaze. He went away with his eyes averted, but only from his former haunts and stayed in town. I did not see him for a long time but heard from him now and then through various sources.

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