The Weeping Woman

By ARTURO GUDIÑO

This book can be read forwards or backwards, either from A to Z or from Z to A; thus you will realize that the micro world described in this text is a wheel of fortune and a magical sphere. Fortune is changeable and magic sometimes reverses its spells against us.
In whatever way you choose to read these pages, you will find more questions than answers concerning the human zoo described within. The unnatural environment of the cities shows us that men and women are capable of the most admirable, as well as the most horrible behaviours. Here you will find an example of how, under both predictable and unpredictable circumstances, the love of a woman can transform itself into hatred, leading her to commit unthinkable actions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jul 12, 2010
• ISBN: 9781426937910

ARTURO GUDIÑO

He has been writing for almost thirty years and produced around twenty books. Of these works, he has published the compilation of poems "Moods of the Year" (Trafford, 2006), the novel "Moliendo Café" (“Grinding Coffee”, Stonehenge Books, 2008) and a collection of poems in prose called "La impaciencia de Orfeo" (“Orpheus’ Impatience”, Stonehenge Books, 2009).

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Contents

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

To Evelyn

A

In the middle of the night all you manage to hear is nonsense. There are faceless voices screaming as if trying to reach some peace. The aisles are visited by walking nightmares whose footsteps wander without ever leaving. All of a sudden silence seems to come. If you pay attention though, you can hear the usual ghosts: a priest crying for his lost flock, a coward complaining about his last defeat, a misanthrope wishing to be alone, and a tired doctor begging for help.

Actually, I sometimes consider this a paradise and not a ruined castle. Perhaps this is more like a shelter to protect us from the outside world: no workaholic can get inside, nor can pilots pollute our sky with their noisy planes. This is a world apart where all we’ve got are these isolated pavilions where a bunch of damned creatures pretend to be saints and a bunch of devils are boasting their false glory.

I will try to describe the zoo of which I am part: there is this junkie boxer, retired from the punching profession; there are a lot of boozers who want to hide away from the pink elephants; there is a skinny guy ready to jump into an abyss because he cannot stand the devil’s voice inside his head. We also have an obsessive young man with such a boring conversation and who is frequently visited by his cute sisters.

There is not much to do for entertainment, so I sometimes try to analyze the symptoms of my partners. Think, for instance, about our black and white schizophrenic. It will probably take him a lifetime to see his inner world in multicolor. For the moment, he only sees shadows and lights and all he hears are his own screams.

I can also talk about Celerina, the mystic patient who thinks that everyone is plotting against her. Her eyes move looking for intruders, her hair is so neglected because all her attention is focused on imaginary enemies. She protects her space, she saves her food and her oxygen as if anyone of us could come and steal them while she is sleeping.

There you have the cop with his guilt complex, who stabbed himself after beating and killing the man that raped his two daughters. One crime incites another. One hell comes after the other.

Anyhow, not everything is gloomy in this castle. For example, we are all witnessing a secret romance between a young man and a pretty young lady. Let me remind you that we patients are not supposed to nourish love. Love is insane. Therefore, the only thing these two lovers can do is to meet at the dining room and exchange glances like teenagers. They treasure non existent kisses with a flavor of risk and prohibition.

After examining this environment I tend to remember some of my books. I wonder where Hermann Hesse went when he needed to rest. Was he sent to a place like this? I am sure those German spas were a healthy escape rather than a pathetic reclusion. And what about the resort described by Kundera in The Farewell? Or the one described in Pereira Declares by Tabucci? I must say that such comfort is missing here. We don’t have the swimming pools, the massages, the woods for healthy promenades and, of course, there are not the pretty nurses from Fellini’s 8 ½.

Instead of a spa, here we share morbid rooms with other patients and we negotiate our freedom according to our behavior. If you are not ready for the real world, you have to stay behind these walls where many of us are trying to recover our memory. Who knows where the lost threads of our individual stories are? We lost something when we left the outside world. A part of us was stolen when we came inside. We changed our beliefs, and our usual moods, when we switched from the pure air outside to this farting atmosphere of the pavilions.

Anyway, here I am, hiding my cigarettes and chocolates from my fellow patients; spending my time as if waiting for a chance to recover my faith in life. I imagine the outside world evolving into something I won’t be able to recognize. Maybe it will become so dangerous that it won’t be worthwhile fighting for my freedom.

So how did I end up here? What was that experience that changed my life so drastically? I think I am almost able to recall a successful path that I was following, though I cannot remember how I was brought to this asylum… sorry, to this castle. And despite that there can be places worse than this… I was not prepared for this experience. I am sure that hell must be darker than this joint, but I want to look upwards instead of downwards. I want to smile instead of feeling ashamed of weeping, hiding from the others.

Clarity and concision are escaping from my perspective and I don’t know where I am going after this. My brain feels so… saturated. They make us swallow too many pills. I guess they affect my mind as well as my body. For instance, I cannot shit frequently enough. There is this buddy that I meet at the restrooms every night. We are like fraternity brothers: he is helplessly trying to vomit, while I smoke dozens of cigarettes trying to shit without any result; therefore, I am always dizzy.

Something tells me that there is no chance for going back, and right now I ignore the last position I earned on the spinning wheel. So what’s next? What kind of future should I fight for? All I can do is to wait, accepting these strange moods that accompany me everyday. What humor should determine my temperament today: phlegm, melancholy, blood, or bile? What is the color of my aura tonight?

While conscious I feel dizzy (too many pills), whereas subconscious I feel sunken in a hell full of odd dreams that were not here before. I beg for help and it seems to be coming, but I ignore when or from whom; for whom my brain tolls? I just want to remember when all this pain began.

After too many days, the psychotic creatures in these pavilions are driving me mad, even madder; and yet, there is not a single chance to blame anyone. This is not the proper atmosphere for clarifying things. What else could you expect from so many sick brains trying to communicate with each other? Who can understand the man who hears voices from God and from the Devil? And what about the guy who tries to escape everyday? Or the one who finds a crazy pleasure in every cigarette he smokes?

So, what’s the root of my own evil, I mean, the reason to be confined in this castle? I don’t know. I sometimes feel like a child who is collecting teardrops in a jar, though nobody cares. For instance, in this very moment everyone is snoring except the nurse and me. She knows exactly what to do in case I lose control; as for myself, I wouldn’t know if I could control anything at all, not even my tears.

It seems to me that I have finally reached a point of no return, this being a nowhere land or rather a nonsense land. This is a joint where it is worthless to think, so I don’t want to waste my few rational thoughts trying to solve pending issues; let those issues be solved on their own. Let my brain healthily react to those tons of pills that they make me consume.

All I want to do is to recover those images of the woman who made me lose my spirit. I want to get those moments back, from the time when I was not aware of the kind of adventure that she and I were going to experience. I want to erase every taint in our lives, every crime committed and every seed of despair. I need to see her as she came into my life for the first time: a magical lady, a floating angel, a beautiful nymph. No one could tell that she was going to become a weeping woman, a creature whose tears would make me mad and whose love would turn into hatred.

Somebody told me that she had been here in this castle. They also said that she transformed this atmosphere into something unusual. The hygiene and control was turned into a filthy chaos. She made her own gothic empire: these thick walls immersed in a floating fog, rats eating the patients’ food, corrosive chains pulled by skinny arms, as well as a persistent musical tone coming from hell. I can accept this legend about her or rather think that nothing strange happened in this asylum. Maybe she became someone like us: an ordinary human being tired of the outside world.

All I can say is that my life became extraordinary since she appeared to change it. Before she came I lived in a plain universe, though with her and through her I experienced an obscure journey through which I became a ghost. Beauty and misery have been so mixed up that it is not clear which of them I should strive for.

B

Bela Kolhazy was born in Szolnok, Hungary, in 1895. His parents gave him a quiet childhood on a relatively prosperous farm, a situation which made him love his home and country above all else. And we are not talking about the political concept of fatherland or the abstract idea of home, but rather about the soil where the boy watched flowers and bushes magically grow.

Most of all, Bela loved his family’s land where a parade of life bloomed every day. He was certainly proud of the Magyar history, and tried to pay attention when his mother would tell him about how their people had expelled powerful intruders, such as the Huns and the Slavs. He was only eight years old when she took him to admire the Kings Square in Budapest. Nevertheless, after showing a sincere lack of concern for historic events, he decided that he would become an agriculturist. Nothing but the cycle of nature mattered to him. The history books could remain on the shelf; all he wanted to learn was how to extract the secrets from the soil and how to obtain benefits from the rain and the sun. So clear was his goal that, at the age of fifteen, he was already working at the famous wine center in Eger.

It’s worth mentioning that Bela never learned to read. He considered it unnecessary, because nature, he thought, had its own language which had to be deciphered in order to obtain its benefits. That was all he needed to know in order to earn a living. He became a solitary, yet vigorous man, only focused on the soil and its fruits. Nevertheless, due to some problems with his coworkers, Bela had to leave Eger after only a year of working in viniculture. They had made fun of Bela’s illiteracy, but especially of his total lack of concern about it.

-Hey Bela!, they used to say, you’re a complete ass who doesn’t even know how to write his own name.

He was sure that extracting the correct secrets from grapes was enough for producing good wine; but the others thought that he was an ignorant fellow without aspirations whatsoever. Anyway, feeling no disappointment at all, he went on to try his luck in the capital, beginning to sell flowers which he cultivated in secret spots that he found in the woods. In those days, Budapest still had the imperial spirit of the late nineteenth century, and buying flowers was a perfectly affordable luxury for many people.

One day when he was offering his bouquets in the streets of Pest, his skills as a florist were discovered by an employee of Count Esterhazy. It only took a couple of days for Bela to begin working at the service of the nobleman, of whose gardens he was going to take care. That became a good period for the illiterate young man. During that time, he would obtain some respectability and sufficient self-confidence, but above all, he was going to dwell in a little paradise where he would produce the most beautiful flowers in all of Hungary.

*

Maria Reita was born in 1900 in the outskirts of Budapest. She was the member of a Gypsy clan that had been wandering around Europe for centuries, enjoying the freedom obtained when people are not attached to any country. As other members of her community, she was not allowed to enter the city, and much less to live there. Anyhow, when she was ten years old she had already managed to sell those miscellaneous items that her relatives obtained from everywhere.

As usual, those were difficult years for the Gypsies. The Austro-Hungarian Empire did not feel comfortable about them, although they were allowed to settle within specific demarcations. Music was the best passport for those eternal wanderers. Maria herself knew how to play the tambourine, embellishing her performance with a voluptuous dance which made men stop to watch her.

*

On September 5th, 1916, Bela Kolhazy was told to deliver a bouquet to a very special friend of Count Esterhazy. The young expert florist did not want to use public transportation, because he knew this would jeopardize his mission. That is why he decided to walk the twenty four blocks necessary to reach his destiny. The moment he was crossing Kazinezy Street, he had an accident that would change his life forever.

It was a warm late-summer day; pedestrians moved with dullness and Bela had to be especially careful with his delicate assignment. Having managed to walk safely, he suddenly saw a crowd of people blocking the sidewalk. He seized the bouquet, as if it were the last bunch of flowers in the country. After crossing that human chain, he thought that everything was going to be all right; but all of a sudden a whirling body came towards him. All he could see was a pair of mesmerizing black eyes and two nervous arms, holding a tambourine which crashed against his bouquet.

For the first time in years, Bela lost interest in flowers. That day he scented the most powerful and intoxicating aroma; it came from a woman dancing like a dandelion under a brisk wind. She was wearing a long skirt stamped with multicolor flowers and her blouse was finely embroidered, although a little dirty. Maria Reita was preparing to escape after the accident, but it was Bela who made her stop.

-Forget about my flowers, but please don’t run away.

Maria didn’t want to stay. She knew it was very easy for her to get in trouble. People used to call the police every time they had the slightest confrontation with Gypsies. And as for Bela, that was not his day. He had to go back and make a new bouquet, which was going to be delivered with enough delay to make Count Esterhazy angry. Nevertheless, it was worth the predicament. The girl with the tambourine had escaped, but her silhouette stayed in Bela’s mind. He did not care about his flowers anymore; from that moment on, nothing and no one would prevent him from finding her.

From one end to the other, Bela swept the city and its outskirts without any result. He felt more nervous than ever before. And yet, how could he be so worried about a woman he didn’t even know?

That instantaneous eye contact produced an effect in him, deeper than all the flowers that he had touched, smelled or seen in his life. After that incident, he continued with his daily routine keeping Maria’s image within a secret niche of his thoughts, thus creating a luminescent spot for his dreams.

Two months had to pass before he could meet Maria again. It happened the day Franz Josef died; and although this had occurred in Vienna, there was some turbulence on the streets of Budapest, as one might have expected. After all, Franz Josef was the king who had ruled Austria and Hungary for almost fifty years. There was some mourning and confusion in the city; and some people thought that, in such kind of events, Gypsies took advantage of the turbulence by putting their pickpocketing into practice.

There were throngs of mourners and agitators in the city. And in such a tumultuous journey, Bela was standing on the street apparently concerned about the king’s death, but in fact he was waiting for a miracle to happen. Immersed in a crowd of people that were pushing each other, he was wondering how far his obsession could take him. Then suddenly he saw the girl with mesmerizing black eyes. She was running away from a horde of furious citizens. Bela understood the situation immediately and prepared himself to receive the girl. He grasped her arm and helped her escape through the chaotic streets.

They left many blocks behind them until Bela felt safe enough to stop and rest. Completely out of breath, he asked Maria not to run away. She felt confused after being saved by a stranger, not seeing why she should stay, but then she heard something that made her hesitate.

-You are the only flower… that is growing in my heart.

Maria thought that she was facing a new danger, because that young man was not giving her any chance to escape. He kissed her with enough decision to show her all the anxiety that had accumulated since the day he found her, but also with enough softness to be sure that she would not feel afraid. Bela released her from his embrace, wanting to know if he had touched any fiber of her soul. Maria stood there and looked at him as if wondering what he was made of.

She was only sixteen, he was twenty one; both of them froze that moment, although for different reasons. The rest of Budapest was still concerned about the death of their king, while the young couple decided to run away towards the Gypsy territory, but of course not before she made a decision.

-If you want to be my man, Maria said, you have to become a Gypsy.

In that instant you didn’t know if this was an invitation, or a warning. Maria was going to be your instructress and your guide, as you accepted to enter an alien world where all knowledge from the past had to be forsaken. Now it was time for you to think in a magical way, to learn to read palms, to interpret signs from the stars, to travel through dreams, and to dwell in lands without frontiers. It was time for you to learn how to survive from a new standpoint.

-When will I have another kiss?

-When you read the names of our children in my eyes.

You felt so confused with this answer, but never abandoned your decision of getting closer to her. After quitting your job with Count Esterhazy, you tried to gain her people’s sympathy through your knowledge of flowers. Unfortunately, none of Maria’s relatives were eager to learn any new craft whatsoever; they felt comfortable enough with their different occupations: horsemen, blacksmiths, jugglers, jesters, bear tamers, pickpockets, barterers, palm readers, seers, prophets of the street, but above all, musicians.

Music was the language of freedom, a sensation you had not felt since you were a child. When you listened to the Gypsies’ notes, you forgot about the lack of comfort in their village. The sound of violins was a vehicle for reaching other spheres; the clarinet produced immediate vibrations in your blood; the tambourine shook your heart, especially because it was through that instrument that you had met Maria; the accordion created love stories inside your brain; the cimbalom was a reminder that the rhythm of life does not stop; and as for the piccolo, it contained the spirits of men and women that were turned into birds.

The musical performances required no anticipation. Everyone was invited to these impromptu festivities, and as a matter of fact, the group of musicians was rather dynamic. Each of them joined, or stayed apart from the performance, according to the harmony displayed. Sometimes it all began with a jocund colloquy among three violins, to which the piccolo added an innocent song from the woods; then the cimbalom induced a crescendo, while people around started dancing, feeling invited by the tambourine. No rules were required. Harmony was gradually constructed over a set of melodies that had never existed before.

The old fat patriarch walked and jumped around the musicians, moving his belly with his own hands, trying to follow the rhythm improvised by his people, who after all were proud of him. Men and women danced merrily, as if they were celebrating the freedom they had defended for centuries.

After listening to all that music for days and days, your mind was full of harmonious vibrations, but your heart was not at ease. Where the hell could you find those names that Maria had requested? Without any hint, you felt your love quest was at stake. In those desperate moments you knew Maria well enough to know that nothing would make her change her mind.

During those restless journeys your flowers became your only consolation; love seemed to escape, due to the strange condition imposed by that beautiful and stubborn Gypsy. Without noticing it, your childhood came to your mind. You recalled the manner in which your mother made you feel proud of the Magyar history. All those tales about victorious heroes became a distraction for your troubled mind. And then, while thinking about those heroes, you suddenly came up with the names for your future sons and daughters: the first two would be Maria and Bela, of course; the next two, Almos and Soliman; and the last of them, Arpad and Janos.

-You didn’t read those names in my eyes, Maria argued.

-No, but they were in my mother’s lips.

-On the other hand, she added, with those names you imply that we will have five sons and only daughter.

-Yes, so that she will be the queen among her brothers.

-Well, then… I can agree with Maria and Bela, but what about the other names?

-They are kings’ names.

–Kings?

-Kings of this land.

Maria was not really convinced about this naming convention, but there was such determination in Bela’s words that she decided to grant him a second kiss. The taste of this new kiss was sweeter than his sweetest dreams. It was the end of darkness; it was a drop of water after a thirsty season. And now, he was ready to endure any other test invented by this capricious girl.

-Tell me, Maria, when will we get married? When will we have the joy of love at last?

-We don’t need to get married, not now anyway. And as for the joy of love…

-What? Now what?

-You will have my entire love the day that you…

-Yes?

-The day that you become a werewolf.

-A what?

-You heard me.

There he was again, submitting to another of her challenges. The problem here was that Bela had not a single clue about how to proceed. Anyway, who in that tribe of strangers could become a werewolf? No one, he was quite sure. Not even the patriarch, who slept with the bear that he tamed with his tambourine. Not even those men who had their gaze as deep as the night, and a smile as strange as the moon.

The days that followed did not bring you any answer at all. The only thing you could do was to observe the habits of those people who happened to hate habits. Everyday was different; everyman and everywoman behaved like a wandering dweller of a magic world. No clues were available, just some hints about their thoughts and their dreams.

The Tarot that they used to read was a door to an even more mysterious world, and you were not interested in its initiation. Palmistry was not among your skills; bear taming was too dangerous; and music was also discarded. The only interest that you wanted to share with them was floriculture, but then you realized that their discipline was too loose. These Gypsies were not patient enough for waiting for your flowers to bloom. On the contrary, they wanted you to understand their own rhythm: sometimes so slow, that they just enjoyed watching ants marching over the dusty ground, but sometimes so fast, that their dances provoked a whirlwind.

And thus you became a passive observer, an intruder that couldn’t mix with these people. Probably they made you so docile and domestic, that you didn’t dare to interfere with their lives; or perhaps your own astonishment made you spiritless. You were like a tamed beast, a piece of furniture, a dying plant longing for the moisture inspired by Maria’s lips.

Night and day Bela remained an alien in that community. He was a statue of salt, a voiceless visitor about to be expelled by a centrifuge force. Nobody seemed to care about his presence. And yet, motionless as he was, his brain harbored a storm, his heart was about to burst, and his hands needed the touch of the woman who showed him nothing but indifference. And then, gradually, he forgot to eat and drink; he could not sleep, nor could he solve his dilemma.

One night, hungry, thirsty and exhausted, Bela went into the woods. He felt helpless and lonely because his lady had forgotten him. With his remaining strength, he ran like a mad dog. Furiously crying, he climbed a hill looking for the moonlight. All those days of misery had to come to an end; he couldn’t take it any more. So why go to the hill? Maybe he was looking for a cloudless spot in the sky, the correct position to ask the moon above about his destiny. Maybe he needed some fresh air, a piece of land away from the Gypsy territory; or maybe, after all, he had finally become a werewolf.

Without noticing it, Bela began running on all fours. He was sweating like never before, foaming at the mouth, feeling a fur over his skin, and howling with all that sound and fury contained in his naked heart.

There he was, the best floriculturist of Budapest converted into a wild animal, tears and sweat covering his face. He was decided on leaving behind those people that did not understand him, so he made the promise to never return. The moon was his only witness. He made a last attempt to look for an answer in the pale face of the heavenly body, but there was no response.

Finally, Bela was about to fall asleep on the wet grass, when suddenly he had a strange vision: a pale woman came floating towards him carrying a basket of flowers. The wolf became a man again. He was ready to receive Maria and invite her to make a truce. She stopped there for a moment, while Bela watched her intensely. What a lovely face she had! Her lonely figure on that hill appeared like a raindrop sliding over the petal of a rose.

-I feel so dirty, he said.

-You’re dirty indeed, but that’s because you became a werewolf.

-I… really… don’t know what to say.

-Don’t say anything and come with me.

That was the most gratifying invitation he could have ever received. First of all, they went to a stream where they bathed. The cold breeze did not prevent Bela from filling his body with joy. He grasped her waist with hunger and smelled her shoulders with delight, easing his pain through her long