Obabakoak (11 page)

But, as I was saying, Grandfather would take this tape measure with him and use it to measure the plants to see how they were growing and one day we’d measure the alfalfa, another day we’d measure the clover, and, because Grandfather’s very old, I was the one who would kneel down and put the zero on the tape measure right on the ground and then Grandfather would make his calculations and say: “No need to worry about this plant, Marie. It’s grown two and three-quarter inches since yesterday. That means the world’s still alive.”

It made me really happy to hear Grandfather say those words, in fact I’d often feel like laughing, and there was one particular day when I laughed a lot because the four of us were in a field of that lovely plant fenugreek, doing our measuring as usual, and suddenly Kent stretched out his neck and ate a whole clump of the stuff, the very clump we’d marked with white thread because, naturally, each time we measured a plant we’d then tie a piece of white thread around it, as a marker, so that we’d know which plant we should look for the next day. And Grandfather got annoyed with Kent and told him it was high time he showed a little respect for his work and that if he didn’t, we’d pull all his teeth out. But he wasn’t angry for long because Kent was a very good horse, as good as gold, and whenever we told him off he’d get very, very sad and look at you with his big eyes and then we’d forgive him everything.

Measuring a plant here and a plant there, we would eventually arrive at the bridge where a bat called Gordon lived and Grandfather always used to say that Gordon was a very indecisive creature and that was why he flew the way he did, always zigzagging, always changing direction, only to end up exactly where he’d started, and that Grandmother was just like Gordon, very indecisive that is, and that’s why she never went out, not even to the church, which is only a mile from our farm. And there was a bird that lived near the bridge, he was called Arthur and Arthur was always late, he’d hang around in the fields and come flying back home at the last minute, hurrying along so that night wouldn’t find him out of his tree, and we could scarcely see him when he flew over us but grandfather would look up and scold him:

“Late again, Arthur! You just like giving the folks at home something to worry about, don’t you!”

I liked Arthur more than Gordon but I liked Gordon too, or at least I didn’t dislike him, but that idiot Vincent did, bats bothered Vincent, and one day he caught one and took it to school and put a lit cigarette in its mouth. And because bats don’t know how to exhale the smoke, it got bigger and bigger and finally its stomach exploded and it died. And because it was just like Gordon, I burst out crying and then that creep Vincent made fun of me.

After crossing the bridge we’d go up a hill from where you could see the village lights and the railway and then Grandfather would open the supper basket and I’d eat a hard-boiled egg, then white bread and salt pork and an apple for dessert. We used to eat in silence, sitting quietly, and both Toby and Kent would lie down in the grass, and we all felt contented, really happy, and it was even better when the summer arrived and the paths would fill with people and there’d be a south wind blowing. And in the summer we’d take longer walks, sometimes going as far as the railway tracks and one day we met the schoolmistress there and because it was night Grandfather and she talked about the stars and how hot it was and Grandfather warned her to watch out for snakes.

Grandfather was very afraid of snakes and that was why on very sultry days there’d be five of us, the usual four plus Frankie the chicken; but there was a problem because Frankie didn’t like walking in front and so couldn’t kill any snakes that might threaten us.

“Frankie! Get in front!” Grandfather would shout.

But Frankie was a very stubborn chicken and wouldn’t obey him and Grandfather would get furious.

“Frankie!” he would yell at the chicken, “I didn’t bring an expert with me in order to have him bringing up the rear.”

That’s what Grandfather thought, that snakes are evil things that kill birds, frighten horses, and steal the milk from cows, but that they’ll having nothing to do with chickens, because chickens are experts at killing snakes.

And so that last summer, the five of us went for our walks, with Grandfather riding Kent and me with the little white walking stick I’d been given at the fiesta, and then the autumn came and it was just the four of us again, because there was no longer any danger of snakes and Frankie stayed at home, and we went on walking and walking until the day the teacher took us to the station.

That day we spent the whole morning doing arithmetic and we were all very good, even Vincent behaved himself, and the schoolmistress was very pleased and she said that, as a reward, we wouldn’t have the last class but instead we’d go to the station to see the horses.

So we went and I’d never seen so many horses all together, there were at least two hundred of them and as it was fairly cold they were all steaming and now and then one of them would whinny. I looked hard at them all, first at one and then at another, comparing them with Kent, and it seemed to me that there wasn’t one horse there handsomer than Kent.

Then, of course, Vincent came over to me, as usual, because he’s a pest and won’t leave me alone, not at school nor anywhere else, and it was just the same that day, be came over and started talking nonsense, things about the schoolmistress, that he knew who she was in love with, that it was the engine driver, the one that was going to take away all these horses, that he knew this was true because he’d seen them kissing, and all of a sudden I forgot I was angry with him and I asked him a question:

“Where are they taking these horses?”

“They’re taking them to Hamburg,” he replied, laughing.

“Why Hamburg?”

“To put them on a ship and send them to America.”

“To America?” I asked, puzzled. I just couldn’t understand why they would do that.

And Vincent told me not to frown, that I wasn’t so pretty when I frowned. And after that stupid remark, he looked over at the horses and said:

“Yes, America. Americans really go for horse meat.”

That was when I realized that those horses were going to the abattoir and that they were going to make that whole journey and then be killed and I felt very sad and didn’t want to stay there any longer. I went back to school to pick up my schoolbag and then I walked very slowly back to the farm, stopping here and there to pick up dry leaves because, it being autumn, the path was covered with them.

An hour later I reached the farm and I saw my grandfather sitting at the door and he saw me, and then he did an odd thing, he lowered his head, he didn’t even greet me, just lowered his head, and suddenly I remembered Kent and I remembered the horses at the station and what Vincent had told me and I flung my schoolbag down and went running to the stable: There was Toby, there was Frankie, but no Kent.

“You’ve sold Kent!” I shouted and Grandfather shouted back and so did my father. And just then I heard that loud whistle the trains give when they’re about to leave the station.

That’s why I don’t go out for a stroll at night anymore, because we no longer have Kent and because Grandfather’s too old to go walking without Kent and since he stays at home, so do I, I don’t even go to school anymore, because something else happened too, the schoolmistress ran off with the engine driver and hasn’t come back yet, and now every night we have supper in the kitchen and I no longer know how the plants are growing, how Gordon and Arthur are, and I feel very sad when I think that, by now, Kent will have been eaten by some American.

NINE WORDS IN HONOR
OF THE VILLAGE OF
                     VILLAMEDIANA

ONE AUTUMN
, when I was nine years old, I was staying with my aunt and uncle for a few days and a man came to their house. He walked straight into the kitchen and, without even a word of greeting, leaned against the wall and began to talk. With some astonishment, I realized that his main topic of conversation was none other than myself; the man was talking about me, about the very first time he’d seen me and about the clothes I was wearing then. He was possessed, he said, of a phenomenal memory and could remember absolutely everything, right down to the color of the sweater I wore at the time and then, crouching down, he asked if it hadn’t been a red one with white stars on it.

“How do you expect the child to know that? He can only have been a baby then, surely you can see that,” my uncle said and, in an attempt to change the subject, began talking about the weather and the south wind that was blowing. However, the man took no notice of him and just went on talking about me, about where and with whom I was playing that first time he saw me and how much I used to enjoy playing games, especially football.

“That much you’re right about,” said my aunt, butting in. And, grabbing my arm, she led me out of the kitchen and told me to go and play, saying I’d be better off out in the street.

I remember that day very well, the air was unusually clear and warmed by a gentle sun, and I wandered about the square until it was evening, by which time I’d completely forgotten about the man who’d turned up at my aunt and uncle’s house just after lunch.

But when I went back to the house, he was still there, still talking and still with his back to the wall but with his arms outstretched on either side, so that he looked, as my aunt remarked later, rather like Christ on the cross at Calvary. He was making absolutely no sense at all now; his conversation was like one long, weary exhalation and my aunt, so preoccupied that she didn’t even notice I was back, was saying: “If he doesn’t shut up, the poor man will choke” and was trying to get him to drink a glass of water. But the man was aware of nothing; behind their thick glasses his blue eyes seemed fixed on some point beyond the kitchen. He was dribbling now too, his face was bright red and the roots of his curly hair were beaded with sweat.

“Please, be quiet. Calm yourself. Let’s all just sit down at the table and have supper together,” my uncle suggested, going over to him, smiling. But it was useless. The man, terrified, stood on tiptoe, pressing himself even closer to the wall, as if he were on the edge of a precipice and in grave danger of plunging into it.

“I’m going to call the doctor,” my aunt said decisively, and, taking off her apron, she ran down to the inn to use their telephone.

The doctor, who was a well-built chap, did his best to prize the man off the wall, but without success, because the man began to scream the moment he felt anyone touching him.

“Bring me a bucket of water,” ordered the doctor, and my aunt and uncle rushed out to the fountain opposite the house, where the water was coldest. The man, meanwhile, kept laughing, and his only, discernible words were: “Now you really are a swine.”

They threw the bucket of water over him and drops spattered the whole kitchen. The house fell suddenly silent and I realized that the man was about to fall headlong, that his knees were buckling under him. But the doctor and my uncle caught him in time and carried him to a dry corner of the room.

“Is he dead?” I asked.

“No, he’s just asleep,” my aunt said to reassure me.

But my fear wouldn’t go away and I stayed in the kitchen listening intently to the ensuing conversation. That’s why I still remember the term the doctor used, a term that struck terror into my heart even then, when I barely knew what a hospital was. The term he used was
electric shock treatment.

“The trouble with him is that he remembers too much,” remarked my uncle when the three of us were left alone again.

“Plus the fact that he lives on his own and spends months in the woods without talking to a soul,” added my aunt, wiping the kitchen floor dry with a cloth.

And that’s both the end of the first story and the beginning of the second, which took place twenty-five years later.

One cold winter afternoon, after toiling up a long hill, I reached the gateway to a mansion built by a rich Spanish emigrant on his return from South America. Enclosed by a stone wall and surrounded by a large garden, the mansion was, at first sight, what most people would term “beautiful,” but there was something about it that aroused my immediate dislike. It was too green, too lush.

But, for all its lush greenness, it would have been just another melancholy, gloomy spot were it not for the fact that it had been permanently sullied. For the builder’s original aim had been altered and one glance at the entrance was enough to understand the nature of that change: an ugly, new steel door filled the presumptuous Chinese arch, which, indulging a caprice, the rich emigrant had had built there. To one side of the door there was a small notice that read:
PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL
.

The arrival of a porter wearing a blue overcoat over his white uniform tore me away from my musings about the arch. I told him I had a friend there and had come with the intention of visiting him, that I had with me an authorization from his family, signed by my friend’s mother. But it was too cold to bother with formalities and so he led me straight through the garden and into the building. As I passed, I noticed the rose gardens, the tennis courts, and the artificial streams flowing through caves carved out of rock, all utterly abandoned, overgrown by brambles and nettles. The house itself—mock-country house in style—had been better maintained, but there was a monstrous addition to the green shutters in the form of thick, black iron bars. At first I assumed they’d been placed there to stop the inmates from escaping. But then it dawned on me that they served another far more dreadful purpose: They were there to stop the inmates from hurling themselves out.