Luna Benamor | Page 4

permit that it was time to leave the city. The
evening patrol paraded through the streets, with its military music of
fifes and drums grouped about the beloved national instrument of the
English, the bass drum, which was being pounded with both hands by a
perspiring athlete, whose rolled-up sleeves revealed powerful biceps.
Behind marched Saint Peter, an official with escort, carrying the keys
to the city. Gibraltar was now out of communication with the rest of the
world; doors and gates were closed. Thrust upon itself it turned to its
devotions, finding in religion an excellent pastime to precede supper
and sleep. The Jews lighted the lamps of their synagogues and sang to
the glory of Jehovah; the Catholics counted their rosaries in the
Cathedral; from the Protestant temple, built in the Moorish style as if it
were a mosque, rose, like a celestial whispering, the voices of the
virgins accompanied by the organ; the Mussulmen gathered in the
house of their consul to whine their interminable and monotonous
salutation to Allah. In the temperance restaurants, established by
Protestant piety for the cure of drunkenness, sober soldiers and sailors,
drinking lemonade or tea, broke forth into harmonious hymns to the
glory of the Lord of Israel, who in ancient times had guided the Jews

through the desert and was now guiding old England over the seas, that
she might establish her morality and her merchandise.
Religion filled the existence of these people, to the point of suppressing
nationality. Aguirre knew that in Gibraltar he was not a Spaniard; he
was a Catholic. And the others, for the most part English subjects,
scarcely recalled this status, designating themselves by the name of
their creed.
In his walks through Royal Street Aguirre had one stopping place: the
entrance to a Hindu bazaar ruled over by a Hindu from Madras named
Khiamull. During the first days of his stay he had bought from the
shopkeeper various gifts for his first cousins in Madrid, the daughters
of an old minister plenipotentiary who helped him in his career. Ever
since then Aguirre would stop for a chat with Khiamull, a shrivelled
old man, with a greenish tan complexion and mustache of jet black that
bristled from his lips like the whiskers of a seal. His gentle, watery
eyes--those of an antelope or of some humble, persecuted
beast--seemed to caress Aguirre with the softness of velvet. He spoke
to the young man in Spanish, mixing among his words, which were
pronounced with an Andalusian accent, a number of rare terms from
distant tongues that he had picked up in his travels. He had journeyed
over half the world for the company by whom he was now employed.
He spoke of his life at the Cape, at Durban, in the Philippines, at Malta,
with a weary expression. Sometimes he looked young; at others his
features contracted with an appearance of old age. Those of his race
seem to be ageless. He recalled his far-off land of the sun, with the
melancholy voice of an exile; his great sacred river, the flower-crowned
Hindu virgins, slender and gracefully curved, showing from between
the thick jewelled jacket and their linen folds a bronze stomach as
beautiful as that of a marble figure. Ah!... When he would accumulate
the price of his return thither, he would certainly join his lot to that of a
maiden with large eyes and a breath of roses, scarcely out of childhood.
Meanwhile he lived like an ascetic fakir amongst the Westerners,
unclean folks with whom he was willing to transact business but with
whom he avoided all unnecessary contact. Ah, to return yonder! Not to
die far from the sacred river!... And as he expressed his intimate wishes

to the inquisitive Spaniard who questioned him concerning the distant
lands of light and mystery, the Hindu coughed painfully, his face
becoming darker than ever, as if the blood that was circulating beneath
the bronze of his skin had turned green.
At times Aguirre, as if waking from a dream, would ask himself what
he was doing there in Gibraltar. Since he had arrived with the intention
of sailing at once, three large vessels had passed the strait bound for the
Oceanic lands. And he had allowed them to sail on, pretending not to
know of their presence, never being able to learn the exact conditions
of his voyage, writing to Madrid, to his influential uncle, letters in
which he spoke of vague ailments that for the moment delayed his
departure. Why?... Why?...
Upon arising, the day following his arrival at Gibraltar, Aguirre looked
through the window curtains of his room with all the curiosity of a
newcomer. The heavens were clouded; it was an October sky; but it
was warm,--a muggy, humid warmth that betrayed the proximity