Olé, Benito

Benito del Salzillo was born prematurely, sanguine, with the wrinkled skin of a lizard and without privilege. He grew up short in stature and dependent on anise since he was treated for toothache. In his village he was always known as something of a devil, for when he was six years of age he climbed to the very top of the tallest tree of the cemetery to see if the dead were moving. ‘Anise of the monkeys!’, he would shout wherever he went. The nickname of monkey stuck.

The television at home was black and white and had only one channel, which broadcasted the bullfight and a few documentaries by Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente. Curious Benito! But he was never educated. He learned numbers with the remote and was never taught to read. When they ran out of anise, his parents sold the set in order to buy more. Bored Benito! He went out into the streets to play bullfight with the statues, armed with a blanket for a cape and a broken bottle for a sword.

Silly Benito! These are not my words, but those of the villagers when they saw him with his mouth looking upwards trying to provoke the statue of an ox. ‘Hey, bull!’ The monument was motionless. ‘Hey, bull!’ His groin stuck out as if he was about to urinate. He spent a few days playing with the cows in the fields. ‘White milk!’ Benito realized that anise was better if mixed. Weeks after he went for the heifers, who were thin like skeletons, and who chased the blanket when he set on them with a stick. ‘Hey, bull!’ He cried, hand on hip. ‘Hey, Benito!’ the ranchers cried infuriated, running towards him.

Benito’s effervescent adolescence glowed from his ruddy cheeks; he started growing, but very slightly. One day, when he was walking towards the nearest village he was drawn to the indifferent black bulls as blackbirds perched on their backs. ‘So much black!’ Benito exclaimed running down the slope.

He was red with virulence when a rejoneador from Jaén found him. ‘Hey, bull!’ his lips inflated looking towards the sky. ‘Hey, bull!’ bathing his injuries with anise. The rejoneador mounted him on the black mane white horse of his when he saw his talent. ‘Brave little man, you’ve got what it takes!’ he told him excitedly.

Benito appeared on the bull ring the following year. ‘Village idiot!’ cried those from the village, astonished when they saw him. Among cheers and applause they celebrated Benito’s art. ‘Gallant Benito!’ He looked dashing in his tight matador’s outfit, armed with sword and cape (with anise bottles hidden behind the coverts). ‘Hey, bull!’ The red scars on his face were full of insolence. ‘Hey, bull!’ his groin was protracted with cockiness. ‘Daring Benito!’ The bull bled upon the ground. ‘Olé, Benito!’ The bullfighter waved the beast’s two severed ears to the audience.

Benito del Salzillo died prematurely, sanguine, with a horn dug into his spleen. ‘Poor Benito!’ As he bled, he asked to be buried high up, to see if the dead were moving. ‘Anise of the monkeys!’ He latched onto a bottle for one last sip, his lips purple, his penis limp. ‘So much black!’ he exclaimed with his dying breath.

Translated by Austin Lovell
Originally written in Spanish by Laura Muñoz

You can find more texts written by Laura at Retórica Bohemia http://retoricabohemia.blogspot.co.uk/

La Nascita di Venere

I adjust the zoom of my binoculars to see my objective with greater clarity. A strong gust of wind displaces my line of sight across the beach and my vision becomes contaminated by the grotesque sight of two hairy buttocks peeping over khaki-green swimming trunks like two snow-capped twin-peaks. I flinch away and get back to my priority. I´m on red-alert, like a life-guard, caring for the safety of those on the beach.

            The lenses of my device fill with a bloody red, bubbling from the heart, gushing from the aorta, tainted by lust. Yes, I´d swear that that was the colour. I zoom out and rigorously contemplate the details of the scene. A drop lands on my trousers. I´m not sweating, it came from my mouth. I notice a light pressure in my swimming trunks and a heat from the inside of my toenails to the top of my head, conquering my whole body. My pupils dilate and in ecstasy I jump down from my chair onto the hot sand.

            I run. I jump the first wave. I struggle through the rest and when they reach my knees I descend into the water to swim the rest of the way. I unintentionally scrape the tips of my toes along the sea-bed, and am apprehended by a growth of seaweed which peeps above the water-line to gaze in malice at the victim I´m trying to save so urgently. I take her in my arms and desperately carry her to the shore, shielding her with the breadth of my back to safeguard her dignity. I feel two protruding lumps pressing against me.  I´m struggling, she weighs more than I thought. Shouts. I hear hundreds shouting. My head is filled with sounds, complaints, defamations, vulgarity. I ignore them. I am a hero, a poet, Cortázar’s Minotaur, the one who challenges society not to stand out but because he simply does not know how to be someone he´s not, to live a lie.

            My actions sometimes have grave consequences. I leave her to rest on the sand and I crouch down by her side. I gaze into her eyes as they open. They are as green as the algae the sea left on my flesh. The depth of her soul resonates with my own, as do her eyes. Her swimsuit is blood-red, as red as my blood. Are we one of the same or simply one?

            “Give her mouth-to-mouth for Christ´s sake!”

            “Yes! Just stop playing around with her!”

            I feel the envy of those who surround me but I am enamoured and deaf to their orders. I only pay attention to her eyes, her eyebrows, her mouth. Pleasure, connection. And as the sun sinks beneath the horizon, I lower my neck and my mouth to hers, until we unite. I kiss her. A spectator dares to intervene with:

            “What the hell are you doing you madman?”

I lift my gaze a little but I ignore the voices that try to quell my passion and return to pressing my lips against her own. My eyes widen as much as hers and I open her mouth with mine. I blow a gust of air into the sacred organs that allow her to breathe, to live, to exist in this mad world where everything, even nature, worships her and surrenders to her beauty.

I then press against her chest, not wanting to damage the bosom that will feed our future children. A blessèd fountain of cool water jets from her mouth, refreshing me in these hot hours of the third of July; a day that I will never forget because of her smile. I drink the fluid from her lungs; I slurp the jet as a puppy licks her paws to keep them clean, pure, virgin as you are.

You come back to life. You rise in a fit of coughs. You inhale. From your mouth erupts traces of the sea. Your mouth and mine are magnets, like the north and the south poles. Allow me to think of you as my darling.

“You´ve saved me!” she cries. I stay silent, absorbed in her gaze.

“What a fright!” I remain in contemplation. Her voice eclipses me.

“Well, thanks for that.”

The crowd breaks up but we both stay there. The north and the south, the sea and the sky. She smiles at me and I see her teeth. They are yellow like sunlight. She´s the one for me. She and I stand together, our gazes fixed. She seems timid and bows her head to the ground. A stranger steps in:

“Gran! Are you all right?”

“Yes Sam, tell gramps to start making the paella. I´ll be a tad late today.”

Translated by Austin Lovell

Originally written in Spanish by Daniel Vicente Cazorla