The Winterlings (3 page)

‘My feet brought me here, but I don't know where I am …'

This was before he disappeared for good. And before the Winterlings disappeared.

Others alleged to have seen him disappear like the wind in the cornfields, along the road that leads to Portugal.

And others still said that it was the girls themselves who had dug his grave.

Sometimes they spoke of everything from the past that related to the war in Tierra de Chá. They were times of lies and confusion. One day was white, and the next was black. One day, the villagers got up as supporters of the Left, and the next, without any scruples at all, they belonged to the Right. One day, a few of them banned the priests from accompanying the dead to the cemetery, and the next day, the very same people would declaim with fervour to the others that if it didn't rain in Tierra de Chá, or if a frost settled on the cabbages, it was because nobody prayed and God was upset. And so they'd get to praying.

One thing for sure was that the church was fuller every day, and the priest, Don Manuel, was delighted.

Even before the war broke out, Don Manuel had lost the confidence and faith of his congregation for a variety of reasons.

First, no one appreciated the way he feasted while the majority of people had nothing to put in their mouths.

Under the pretext that the church needed money for wine, holy bread, and ornaments, he went about the village pulling a cart that creaked like the devil, asking for offerings. Nobody was obligated to give him anything, but even if it were snowing outside, not a day went by without Don Manuel heading out with his cart. If there was no bread, he'd get a pail of corn, some potatoes, a wheel of cheese, a few ounces of chocolate, or a pot of local honey. He always got something.

And then there was the pungent stench he gave off. Just because he was a priest, did that mean he didn't have to wash? When you saw him coming along, you'd cross to the other side of the street.

But during the war, the church became a place of refuge for many. Some went to ask for protection from God, and others went to let themselves be seen there. One day, some of the villagers, walking by the mountain, sang something about the priests and the monks, and the beating they were going to give them. It wasn't, strictly speaking, what you might call a song, just words they made up as they went along, and that were borne off by the wind. The next day, they sang heavenly songs. They proudly wore their Saints' medals, which were covered in mould, and had been found by their wives in the bottom of some drawer.

People said that if the Popular Front won, the rich folks would have to share their wealth. The poor folks liked the sound of this. But once the war started, there was no sharing out of anything; instead, hunger and fear became routine.

In people's homes, anything that could be added to the bread dough that wasn't poisonous was added: straw, wood chips, toads, and stones. The village was dying of hunger; no one had anything to eat, and, even still, everybody complained about the bread and how hard it was. Folks lost a lot of teeth trying to chew on it. The Winterlings remembered that sensation, too; they'd forgotten many people's faces, but they remembered the bitter taste of the bread.

Cabbages, tomatoes, and collard greens were all scarce. Even the potato crop began to dwindle. Only the gorse bushes kept growing, fierce and solitary, unfazed by a lack of cultivation or the privations of war. They spoke of all this in the first days of the war by the hearth in their homes. While they shucked the corn, and mended or made sweaters, rumours and bits of news of a very different kind began to swirl. All of this went on, and then, after a while, they arrested Mr Tenderlove, the dental mechanic. He was released after a twelve thousand real fine for pulling the teeth of dead people he found lying in ditches. That's what people were saying, although no one could believe it.

A few weeks into the conflict, the body of a man shot to death by a firing squad appeared by the river. By the hearth, they talked about his death with fear and anger. Some of the villagers who had voted for the Left in the elections no longer left their houses.

Several of the young men from the village were called to the front. The rest were in Brazil or Cuba, or had fled to Portugal.

When the war came, they stopped celebrating their festivals, and people began to be fearful of whom they went around with and what they said aloud.

People stopped greeting each other in the street. They met each other's gaze for a second, and then straight away looked at the ground. No one asked questions. No one understood it. No one knew if doors were open or closed, if they were heading up or heading down.

And then there was the matter of the watches. During the war, not a single watch kept the same time in Tierra de Chá. If at one end of the village a watch said it was six o'clock, at the other end it was a quarter past two.

Uncle Rosendo, the teacher, had the best time of it. He found his own personal refuge in making the children draw maps so as to be up to date with the conflict, with a well-defined border between Nationalist Spain and Republican Spain. At the head of the bodies of troops, he'd draw the arrows, the yoke, and the national flag, and sometimes, he'd paste on the photo of some bigwig general he cut out of the newspaper. Next to the arrows he'd write ‘First Year of Triumph' or ‘Second Year of Triumph' or ‘Victory Year'.

The children didn't live in fear of the war so much as in fear of Uncle Rosendo's maps.

That was when they took away the Winterlings' grandfather. They held him for a week and then brought him back home. The practise of healing and magic was banned in Tierra de Chá — it was argued they were arts of the communist persuasion — although to tell the truth, more and more mysterious and extraordinary events took place in the village every day.

Greta the cow mooed for a third time.

‘Open up, it's us, the women from the village.'

One of the Winterlings opened the door.

‘What do you want?' she said.

5

So much waiting, spying from behind the curtains, deliberating over where the Winterlings could be — rumour had it they were overseas, perhaps in gloomy, rainy England. Now they wanted to know why they had come back. Above all, they were sure that the sisters would never have come back with bad intentions.

‘We don't even know our own intentions,' they said in unison.

And that's what it looked like. Since their arrival, each day had passed strangely in the same way for the two women. As if they'd never even left.

As if they'd always been there — with the sky, the earth, the flowers, and the moon of Tierra de Chá.

At dawn, after breakfast by the warmth of the fire, (one takes coffee with milk, the other bread with wine) they link arms (one is slightly taller than the other) and leave the house, dressed in doublets, skirts, and jackets, with scarves over their heads, and clogs on their feet.

The one who breakfasts on bread and wine squints at the sky and sniffs at the air. Resting a large, bony hand on her sister's shoulder, she sighs deeply.

‘Let's see what the day has in store for us,' she says. Or perhaps she says, ‘Only God can tell what shall come to pass' or even, ‘Give me patience, Lord, to suffer these trials'.

Which is all nonsense because nothing ever happens.

God doesn't ask patience of them nor does He put them on trial. Their strength is to be found in the push and pull of repetition.

In the village, everyone knows each other, and everyone greets each other. Each family knows everyone else's family history, the names of their parents, their grandparents, and what goods and property they own.

The village is laid out like a fishbone diagram.

It consists of one main street that is a bit wider than the rest, running into a town square with a big stone cross. On both sides, there are alleyways clotted with dark two-storey stone houses, with black stone tiles on the roofs. There's the church with its vestibule carpeted in bones, the communal oven, and the tavern. There are also carts and beasts of burden. Cows tied to a rope walk slowly over to drink from the river.

The grove of lime trees.

And behind curtains, eyes. The same eyes as always.

Everything there takes place according to the season. In summer, they thresh the grain and pick the grapes; in September, they sow and they harvest. On the evening of the first day of November, they roast chestnuts and eat them with wine. After All Saints' Day, it's the festival of the
fiadeiro
and the
esfolladas
, or the spinner and the shuckers, when all the young men and women end up dancing in the kitchen. After that comes the season to slaughter the pigs: sausages and sausage meat.
Filloa
pancakes and dried apricots. All year long, they go up the mountain to collect gorse, watch over the livestock, gather kindling, and mix the manure in the square.

Always the same old faces. They are convinced that the whole world ends just around the corner from the main street, when you can no longer see the houses in Tierra de Chá.

The same faces, the same wine, the gorse, the women's stockings strangling their calves. The sweet smell of manure spread about the square.

The same signs of boredom. Everything has the same flavour as before.

The same people, and new people as well, watching the Winterlings. Looking for something to do while they watched them.

Among the dogs and the children, who clear a path for them, they head up the mountain, one Winterling in front, the other behind, followed by the cow and four sheep — that's all.

The women, and the animals.

The mountain.

(Their feet remember,

and they let them walk.)

They return at dusk, enveloped by the sound of cowbells. They sow some potatoes, draw water from the well, feed the chickens, grill some meat, and make soup.

They feel comfortable in this slowness. The less they talk, the better. Words entangle, confuse, and deceive; you don't need words to feel. They are comfortable, and the mere fact of being together, being alone, sharing their surrounds, a soup, an anise, makes them feel good. They do not expect more, and they do not wish for more.

Everything astonishes them: a chicken lays an egg, or a plant shoots up from among the clods of earth, and they are overcome by the certainty that God is right there.

Life seems like a miracle.

But it's not God making miracles. It's repetition.

In the evenings, while they sew on the Singer machines, they listen to a soap opera on the radio that nearly always makes them cry.

Afterwards, they close the door of the house and are alone, under the covers, in the warmth of self-imposed solitude.

6

Only on very windy nights did the routine change.

In the darkness of their bedroom, in their little iron beds, the Winterlings let themselves speak of their secret.

A voice (or is it the wind?) scratches away at the silence.

‘Listen, Sala …'

And the other replies:

‘What?'

‘That day, do you think …'

‘Yes …'

‘Do you think we did the right thing, Sala?'

‘We did what we had to do, Dolores.'

And then after a while:

‘Listen …'

Saladina lights the oil lamp. She stretches an arm towards the other bed and takes her sister's hand.

‘What, Dolores, tell me …'

Her skin gives off waves of heat; the light, the beating of their hearts, and the touching of flesh soothes the women. Dolores' answer lurks in the darkness.

‘Nothing.'

They turn the light back off and fall asleep. At dawn, the same old fiesta. Breakfast, the cow, the orchard, the chickens, the jam,

the soap opera on the radio that makes them cry,

the
clack clack clack
of the sewing machine,

Dolores and Saladina,

Remorse.

7

Many things in this world are indescribable; but the marvellous thing about the human mind is how it adapts when the worst happens. It seems to reason that beyond the worst, there can't be anything. The unimaginable has taken place, and on the other side is death, chaos, the end. But the worst thing happens, and the mind breaks through the silence. It knows how to break through. It flails around blindly, it exists in a state of shock, but it stays afloat. It rises toward the noise. It stands up and confronts.
It gets used to it.

Remorse, a tentacular octopus.

Remorse: but for what?

Only they know.

The group of women peering in through the cobwebs in the doorway suspect nothing. Although they already know a few more things. They know what trade the sisters learnt and practised while they were away, and that they like the movies. They know that one of them married, that her husband died, and that she has no children. They know their ages: thirty and then some, maybe forty, or forty-two.