La deuda

La deuda, or in other words, ‘The guilt or the strange death and no less surprising resurrection and second death of Ali Ibrahim María de los Altos Pozos y Resuello, named The Turk’, comprises three stories set in the small village of El Paraíso. In the first part, ‘Death Throes and Death’, the local pawnbroker known as the Turk is poisoned and dies a slow and unpleasant death. No one in the village lifts a finger to help him. Nor does anyone seem to be directly responsible for his death, but most of them don’t regret it: they owed the Turk money and the possessions they had pawned conceal important secrets of life. In the second part, ‘Fear and Guilt’, the villagers try to get their possessions back. But the ghost of the Turk returns. Begonia, a former girlfriend of the Turk, steals his body, cleans it and puts it in his own attic. But next morning the body has gone. El Paraíso is overcome with fear. The village elder, Nicanor, always willing to profit from his own position, decrees that all debts have been paid and goes in search of another corpse. In the third part, ‘Punishment and Mercy’, the river floods. The villagers regard that as punishment for their sins and organise a procession as penance.