the handsomest

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G A B R I E T G A R C I A M A R Q U E Z

TheHandsomest rownedMan

in the World

o

The first children who saw the dark and slinky bulge approaching

through the sea et themselves hink it was an enemy ship. Then they

saw t had no flagsor mastsand they thought it wasa whale. But when it

washedup on the beach, hey removed the clumps of seaweed,he jelly-

6sh tentacles, and the remains of fish and flotsam, and only then did

they see hat it was a drowned man.They had been playing with him all aftemoon, burying him in the

sandand digging him up again,when someonechanced o see hem and

spread he alarm in the village.The men who carriedhim to the nearest

housenoticed that he weighed more than any deadman they had ever

known, almost as much as a horse, and they said to each other that

maybehe'd been floating too long and the water had got into his bones.

When they laid him on the floor they said he'd been aller than all other

men because here was barely enough room for him in the house, but

they thought that maybe he ability to keep on growing after death was

part of the nature of certain drowned men. He had the smell of the sea

about him and only his shapegaveone to suppose hat it was he corpseof a human being, because he skin was covered with a crust of mud and

scales.

They did not even have to clean off his face to know that the dead

man wasa stranger.The village wasmade up of only twenty-odd wooden

houses hat had stone courtyardswith no flowersand which were spread

about on the end of a desert-like cape. There was so little land that

mothers always went about with the fear that the wind would car ry off

their children and the few dead hat the yearshad causedamong them

T H E H A N D S O M E S T R O W N E D A N I N T H E W O R L D

had to be thrown off the cliffs. But the seawas calm and bountiful and

all the men fitted into sevenboats. So when they found the drowned

man they simply had to look at one another to see hat they were all

there.

That night they did not go out to work at sea.While the men went to

6nd out if anyone was missing in neighbouring villages, the women

stayedbehind to care or the drowned man. They took the mud offwithgrass wabs, hey removed the underwaterstones entangled in his hair,

and they scraped he crust off with tools used or scaling fish. As they

weredoing that they noticed that the vegetation on him came rom far.

awayoceansand deep water and that his clothes were n tatters,as f he

hadsailed hrough labyrinths of coral. They noticed too rhar he bore his

death with pride, for he did not have the lonely look of other drowned

men who cameout of the sea or that haggard,needy look of men who

drowned n rivers. But only when they finished cleaning him offdid they

becomeawareof the kind of man he was and it left them breathless.Not

only was he the tallest, strongest, most virile, and best built man they

had ever seen,but even though they were looking at him there was noroom or him in their imagination.

They could not find a bed in the village large enough to lay him on

nor was here a table solid enough to use or his wake.The tallest ment

holiday pantswould not fit him, nor rhe fattesrones' Sunday shirrs, nor

the shoesof the one with the biggest eet. Fascinatedby his huge size

and his beauty, he women then decided o make him somepants rom a

largepiece of sail and a shirt from somebridal brabant linen so that he

could continue through his death with dignity. As they sewed, itting in

a circle andgazingat the corpsebetween stitches, t seemed o them that

the wind had never beensosteadynor the seaso estless son that night

and they supposed hat the changehad something to do with the deadman. They thought that if that magnificent man had lived in the village,

hishouse would have had the widest doors,rhe highest ceiling, and the

strongest loor, his bedstead would have been made from a midship

frameheld togetherby iron bolts, and his wife would have been he hap-

piestwoman. They thought that he would have had so much authority

that he could have drawn fish out of the sea simply by calling their

namesand that he would have put so much work into his land that

springswould have burst forth from among the rocks so rhat he would



10 2 G A B R I E L A R C I AM A R Q U E Z

have been able to plant flowers on the cliffs. They secretly compared

him to their own men, thinking that for all their lives theirs were inca-

pable of doing what he could do in one night, and they ended up dis-

missing them deep in their hearts as the weakest, meanest, and most

useless reatureson earth. They were wandering through that mazeof

fantasywhen the oldest woman, who as he oldest had looked upon the

drowned man with more compassion han passion,sighed:

"He has he faceof someone alled Bteban."

It was rue. Most of them had only to take another look at him to see

that he could not have any other name. The more stubbom among

them, who were the youngest,still lived for a few hours with the illusion

that when they put his clothes on and he lay among the flowers in

patent leather shoeshis name might be Lautaro. But it was a vain illu-

sion. There had not been enough canvas, he poorly cut and worse sewn

pants were too tight, and the hidden strength of his heart popped the

buttons on his shirt. After midnight the whistling of the wind died down

and the sea ell into its Wednesday rowsiness. he silenceput an end to

any ast doubts: he was Esteban.The women who had dressed im, whohad combedhis hair. had cut his nails and shavedhim were unable to

hold back a shudder of pity when they had to resign themselves o his

being draggedalong the ground. It was then that they understood how

unhappy he must have beenwith that huge body since t bothered him

even after death. They could see him in life, condemned to going

through doors sideways, racking his head on crossbeams,emaining on

his feet during visits, not knowing what to do with his soft,pink, sea ion

hands while the lady of the house ooked for her most resistantchair and

beggedhim, frightened to death, sit here, Esteban,please,and he, lean-

ing against he wall, smiling, don't bother, ma'am, I'm frne where I am,

his heels raw and his back roasted rom having done the same hing somany times whenever he paid a visit, don't bother, ma'am, I'm fine

where I am, just to avoid the embarrassmentof breaking up the chair,

and never knowing perhaps hat the oneswho saiddon't go, Esteban,at

least wait till the coffee's eady,were the ones who later on would whis-

per the big boob finally left, how nice, the handsome ool hasgone.That

waswhat the women were hinking beside he body a little before dawn.

Later, when they covered his face with a handkerchief sothat the light

would not bother him, he looked so forever dead, so defenceless, o

T H E H A N D S O M E S T R O W N E D A N I N T H E W O R L D

much like their men that the first furrowsof tearsopened n their hearts.It was one of the younger ones who began the weeping. The others,coming to, went from sighs o wails,and the more they sobbed he morethey felt like weeping,because he drowned man wasbecoming all themore Bteban for them, and so they wept so much, for he was he mostdestitute, most peaceful,and most obliging man on earth, poor Esteban.So when the men returned with the newsrhat the drowned man wasnotfrom the neighbouring villages either, the women felt an opening ofjubilation in the midst of their tears.

"Praise he Lord," they sighed, het ours "

The men thought the fuss was only womanish frivoliry. Fatiguedbecause f the difficult night-time enquiries,all they wanted was o getrid of the bother of the newcomer once and for all before the sun grewstrong on that arid, windless day. They improvised a litter with theremainsof foremastsand gaffs, ying it together with rigging so that itwould bear the weighr of the body until rhey reached the cliffs. Theywanted to tie the anchor from a cargoship to him so hat he would sink

easily nto the deepestwaves,where fish areblind and diversdie of nos-talgia, and bad currents would not bring him back to shore,as had hap-pened with other bodies. But the more they hunied, the more thewomen thought of ways o waste ime. They walked about like siartledhens,pecking with the seacharmson their breasts, ome nterfering onone side to put a scapularof the good wind on the drowned man, someon the other side o put a wrist compass n him, and after a greatdeal ofgetawal from there worntrn, stal out of theway look, you qlmostmademe

fallon tapof thednad'man, rhe men began o feel mistrust in their liversand started grumbling about why so many main-altar decorations or astranger,because o matter how many nails and holy-water jars he had

on him, the sharkswould chew him all the same,but the women keptpiling on their junk relics, running back and forth, stumbling, whilethey releasedn sighswhat they did not in tears,so that the men finallyexploded with since when has hereeverbeen sucha fussouera driftingcarpse, drocwvd nobody,a pieceof cold Wefulesdaymeat. One of thewomen, mortified by so much lack of care, then removed the handker-chief from the deadman's aceand the men were eft breathless oo.

He wasBteban. It was not necessaryo repear t for them to recog-nize him. If they had been told Sir Walter Raleigh,even they might



C A B R I E T A R C I AM A R Q U E Z

have been mpressedwith his gringo accent, the macawon his shoulder,

his cannibal-killing blunderbuss, ut there could be only one Esteban n

the world and there he was, stretched out like a sperrnwhale, shoeless,

wearing he pants of an undersized hild, and with those stony nails that

had to be cut with a knife. They only had to take the handkerchief off

his face o see hat he was ashamed, hat it wasnot his fault that he was

so big or so heavy or so handsome, and if he had known that this was

going to happen, he would have looked for a more discreet place to

drown in, seriously, even would have tied the anchor off a galleon

around my neck and staggered ff a cliff like someonewho doesn't like

things in order not to be upsetting people now with this Wednesday

dead body, asyou people say, n order not to be bothering anyone with

this filthy piece of cold meat that doesn't have anything to do with me.

There was so much truth in his manner that even the most mistrustful

men, the oneswho felt the bittemess of endlessnights at sea earing that

their women would tire of dreaming about them and begin to dream of

drowned men, even they and others who were harder still shuddered n

the marrow of their bones at Bteban's sincerity.

That was how they came to hold the most splendid funeral they

could conceive of for an abandoned drowned man. Some women who

had gone o get flowers n the neighbouring villages retumed with other

women who could not believe what they had been told, and those

women went back for more flowerswhen they saw the dead man, and

they brought more and more until there were so many flowers and so

many people that it was hard to walk about. At the final moment it

pained them to retum him to the waters as an orphan and they chose a

father and mother from among the best people, and aunts and uncles

and cousins, so that through htm all the inhabitants of the vi[age

becamekinsmen. Some sailorswho heard the weeping from a distancewent off course and people heard of one who had himself tied to the

mainmast, remembering ancient fables about sirens.While they fought

for the privilege of carrying him on their shoulders along the steep

escarpmentof the cliffs, men and women becameaware or the first time

of the desolation of their streets, he drynessof their courtyards, he nar-

rownessof their dreamsas hey faced the splendourand beauty of their,

drownedman. They let him gowithout an anchor so hat he could come

back if he wished and whenever he wished, and they all held their'

T H E H A N D S O M E S T R O W N E D A N I N T H E W O R L D I O 5

breath for the fraction ofcenturies the body took to fall into the abyss.They did not need to look ar one another to rearize hat they were nolonger all presenr, hat they would never be. But they also knew thaceverything would be different from then on, thar their houseswouldhave wider doors, higher ceilings, and stronger floors so that Bteban,smemory could go everywherewithout bumping into beamsand so tharno one in the future would dare whisper

the big boob finally died, toobad, the handsome fool has finally died, because hey were going topaint their house ronts gay colours to make Esteban's ..orf

","L"1nd they weregoing to break their backsdigging for springsamong thestonesand planting flowerson the cliffs so that in futrr.. y1".,

",i"*r,

the passengers n great liners would awaken,suffocatedby the smell ofgardenson the high seas,and the captain would have ro come downfrom the bridge n his dressuniform, with his astrolabe,his pole star,andhis row of war medalsand, pointing to the promontory of roses,on hehorizon, he would say n fourteen languages,ook there, where the windis so peacefulnow that it's gone to sleepbeneath the beds,over there,

where the sun'sso bright that the sunflo*ers don,t know which.lwaytotum, yes,over there, thatt Estebant village.

TianslatedyG egor Rab sa

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