Leer El enlutado (Novela) Capítulo 2 online gratis en español

I was looking at the wooden coffins when an immaculate man in a black suit entered the funeral home. It is strange to see around these parts gentlemen with shiny shoes and fine suits that clearly betray their class. He glanced sidelong left and right at everything in his field of vision and, he seemed to read the curiosity on my face, for when his scrutiny traveled over my ribs I let out expletives that made him slide his gaze away. The owner approached, saying: —Come this way sir. I had no desire to make an enemy of whom looked like the devil’s personal friend, but the disgust at the hospitality they showed him stuck in my throat, followed by an irritating cough that, had I been in my right mind, I would have let pass with embarrassment. At that precise moment I blurted: —I need a coffin. The assistant employee came out of nowhere trying to dilute the situation—only God knows why he gave me a mouth and such temper—in my eagerness to see the world from his privilege I raised my gaze defying the owner’s anger, who was about to throw me out of the branch, when the man in the suit intervened: —I would like to hear second opinions, if it does not inconvenience the gentleman. Ahhh! I sighed in relief when the man in the black suit came to my defense. I entered the open room grandly, looking from end to end at the spectacle of coffins under the white light. The man looked at me curiously, and before he could come too close, I headed to the back of the room where the indulgent designs carved in silver were. My fluid gait stopped before a bronze coffin lined inside with silk. The prices were ridiculous, unaffordable, horrible to look at! My heart trembled with anguish at the exorbitant figures. It must have been a spectacle from the doorway, because I heard furtive laughter. —You have to be a wretch to laugh at the mourner. Silence fell. The harsh experience opened an opportunity for me to mention the coffin—Adjust the price—I demanded deliberately to lighten the mood. The owner quickly changed into his merchant skin. —They’re fixed prices. —Is that the final price, or the one you expect someone who has no time to compare to pay? —Sir, there’s no point in my lowering the price, because you also have to pay for the hearse service and the staff who place it. —Then it isn’t a fixed price. —There are coffins with less ornamentation that carry altruistic prices; set aside your stubbornness for the deceased’s sake. For the first time in the unbearable episodes of my life, I could feel my scoundrel pride abandoning me to my fate. The man hated me, that was certain, but I would not give him the pleasure of extinguishing my rancor with infamies. I was pondering his advice when, suddenly, the adversary chilled the blood in his veins. —I’ll reduce the price by a half, hearse included, but you must pay the full price in cash. The ignominious offer froze my reply without any mercy. It was something he reasoned out, satisfied, knowing of my pride and urgency. The white light bouncing off his damned pale face suddenly made me sick. The heat of the moment urged me to answer anything, to hurl any blasphemy; however, there I was like a tame beast. —If you can’t— —Charge it on my account. The owner, about to protest with unspeakable effort at the immaculate mourner, was silenced by his feigned respect for the client’s grief.—Are you going to oppose it? You should had better keep your stance of silence unshaken. Not for a moment would the owner let this rich man go. The sad, bulging eyes of the distinctive man examined the coffins one by one, making his sobriety apparent when it came to closing deals. From that shameful incident on, most of the details were settled by that man’s money. If I were Herculean like him and had half the charisma, I could work wonders; or if I had his suit, I could seduce merchants with a hundred different vanities. The quips I was recounting in my scatterbrained head was interrupted by the doorbell that signaled his departure. I ran as fast as the winter wind allowed. —Wait! Will you be my friend? That night, though incongruous, could pull me out of misery if only I could reach out his side. —What is the deceased like? The question took me by surprise. Even if I wanted to win his favor, my miserly indifference would bury me before the deceased, because the truth is, I didn’t even care to know his name. —He’s my brother. The man went silent. He asked nothing more. His appearance evoked the melancholy solemnity of a squandered cinematic atmosphere. All along the way I had envied the man in black. I envied his shoes, his coat, the way money seemed to obey him. I envied the hands that clasped his, the children who ran to greet him, the bread they offered him without asking anything in return. I thought that man had conquered the world, and that I, miserable as I was, had barely managed to survive in it. As is logical to suppose, our conversations dealt mainly with his little world; men framed in impure suits who defend lies to stir up the truth, incurable victims of abject evil, repugnant misfortunes, and bald braggarts. Each of the characters presented himself as more intriguing than the last, until he made a dry pause that forced me to look at him. He put his hands in his pockets and said: —The deceased was my friend. Even though I was insensitive, curiosity was killing me—What was your friend like? The immaculate man in black did not answer immediately. We kept walking. The streets were damp from isolated drops that had fallen in the afternoon, and the wind’s funeral speech filtered between the buildings with that obstinacy that only things of an ominous nature have. Tears escaped little by little from the poor man. —He was a bachelor lawyer. The best I have ever known. Amusing in his witticisms and infamous in the courts, fatally condemned to marriage with a wonderful woman whom he slowly destroyed, destined to be abandoned by his children, whom he loved with all his small heart. His closest acquaintances, his friends so to speak, sent their condolences in an email, as did the great academies, out of the tiresome duty of decorum. No one attended to keep him company. That is why I make this trip, to give him my last farewell. Poor devil. It gave me some satisfaction, at least, that his pathetic friend was worse than I was. Living in poverty could be corrected with money; misery, on the other hand, seemed a fatality for which there is no remedy. We arrived. The funeral home where the deceased were waked was a hovel compared with the wealth of the man who had hired the service. Dense clouds of incense clouded the interior of the rooms, making me lose the immaculate man in the black suit. I set out to look for the bronze coffin. A lady of the sort who recite the rosary approached me with an expression that ruled out any possible reply I could give her. —Which room are you here for? —I don’t know which room it’s in, but I’m looking for a showy bronze coffin. Her expression turned somewhat more serious.—Are you his friend? How good that you’ve come to visit him. We’ve been reciting the rosary for a long time because no one came to see him.—If I told her that I wasn’t really here for a deceased person, I’d be a despicable scoundrel and they’d throw me out without remedy. Taking advantage of the discretion behind my silence, the lady dragged me toward the bronze coffin. As we passed, the corridors howl in solitude and blackness. The aroma of burnt candle wax permeates the air. Several open coffins gathered crowds overflowing with physical discomfort, where they cried, shouted, and suddenly prayed for the dead. We walked and walked until we arrived and saw the sad scene behind an abandoned coffin, with no candles, flowers, or singing. I leaned in, and the dead man lay rigid, as the dead always lie heavily; his limbs sunk into the soft cushions of the coffin, his head settled forever on the pillow. When I reached his face, horror ran through my whole body. I felt my heart suffocating. I closed my eyes in fear, and when I opened them little by little, I saw my body lying inside. I ran out like a madman into the adjoining room, trying to escape my own death. I don’t want to, I don’t want to! When I entered, the black coffin that the immaculate mourner had bought was displayed in the center of the room, covered with dark carnations and chrysanthemums. I felt small, even more afflicted than I had ever been because of my pitiless rebellion. Bearing the infamy of life, I faced the terror of the silence, the silence of a dead man. —There was my friend, in his immaculate suit black.