| I mentioned earlier that I was reading books by Jesus Moncada. He’s a Catalan author who wrote fiction set in the little place where he grew up. His stuff is mostly humorous, and the gentle poking fun at small-town characters reminds me of Garrison Keillor. I just read a particularly good story by Moncada called “A Letter to Mrs. Death from Miquel Garrigues.” The letter is dictated to a friend by a man who spent the first part of his life as a ferryman, a job that was hereditary in his family, and which he loved. He describes the beauty of the river, especially just before dawn, when he would carry miners with their helmet-lamps lit across the river to their work in the coal mines. Eventually a bridge was built across the river, and he became redundant, so he had to get a job in the mines himself, but he always pined for his old work. One of the other regulars in the cafe where he spends his days since his retirement is an amateur artist, and he calls Miquel to his house to look at the canvas he is working on. The picture shows a boat crossing a river, and the artist wants to check that he has the details right. The ferry is indeed accurate, but Miquel wants to know why the the ferryman is so strange and why all the passengers are naked. The artist explains that it’s a painting of Charon carrying the souls of the dead across the river Styx, something Miquel had never heard of before. So now Miquel is writing a humble request to Mrs. Death, and he has asked to have it pinned to the lapel of the suit he will be buried in, when the time comes, so that she will be sure to see it. He wants her to consider taking him on as a substitute ferryman, for when Charon is sick or on holiday. There’s been no chance for him to get back to the work he loved in life, but perhaps in death he will at last be on the water again. I found the story, like much of Moncada’s work, at the same time clever, funny, and moving. Following up on Charon in Robert Graves Greek Myths, I find that you need to have a coin to pay your passage across the Styx, and people used to be buried with a coin under their tongue so they would not be stranded on the bank of the river. And: Hades, where Charon takes you, was originally the name of the god of the underworld, and eventually was transferred from the god to the place. Hades was one of three sons of Cronus and Rhea who drew lots to divide the world between them. Zeus got the earth, Poseidon got the sea, and Hades got the underworld. (This reminded me of the movie Gosford Park, where we learn that two sisters drew cards to decide who was going to get to marry whom.) The picture, with no connection to the above, is the fox statues in my front garden, peeking out from the greenery. It’s chilly here, but we haven’t yet had a really serious frost. Shavua tov to everyone - may we all have a happy and healthy week! |
| Created on 5 December 2020, updated on 7 March 2021 by Samuel Ethan Fox |