“You’re disgusting, Quirze!”
“And you’re a lying cow!”
“There are lots of things I can’t tell.”
“You’re a piss-pot!”
Oak-Leaf ran home while Quirze screamed after her: “That’s what the teacher always says: ‘Oak-Leaf’s a piss-pot!’”
“That’s a lie!” She swung round, still running. “Mr. Madern doesn’t call me Oak-Leaf. He calls me by my proper name, Elisa. Elisa. My real name.”
“Oh, really!” Quirze mocked the fleeing girl’s voice. “Elisa! How lovely, Elisa! Call her Elisa, that’s so posh. Oak-Leaf, rather than Oak-Leaf, you stink of dung and glue!”
And he began to shout and murder that song:
“The man who teaches me
fell in love with me
fol-de-rum, fol-de-ree!
Fell in love with Elisa,
saying, don’t you be a nun,
you’re going to marry me,
fol-de-rum, fol-de-ree!
The teacher’ll marry
Elisa Oak-Leafie!”
9
Nobody mentioned the horse again, it was as if we had never seen it. Dad Quirze was grumpier than usual. If it was difficult to get a word out of him before, he now acted like a dumb mute after that shouting match with the local dignitaries. As if their visitation had passed on a disease that was silently eating away his insides.
On one of the few days he was on the farm with his flock, Grandfather Hand bumped into him on the porch, just as we three were leaving for class with our satchels, and he talked to him as if he were a stranger.
“Watch out for the scoopers, they’re a scheming bunch. They’re a stinking lot. And those other bigwigs are nasty too. They all live on cushy handouts.”
“Bigwig” in Grandfather’s language was any person of authority who didn’t deserve the place he occupied, that he’d simply inherited.
“Tell them the horse was mine and let them turn their fire on me. That I brought it down from the mountains. That it was a breed from the Pyrenees I wanted to transplant down here. That I was bringing it with the flock when it wandered off, as lots of animals do…”
Dad Quirze said nothing. When Grandfather Hand noticed we’d come to a halt and were listening, he raised his stick and waved it threateningly at us: “So what are you three doing here? Clear off to class, you don’t deserve the crumbs on your plate! Beat it, and quick, or I’ll set the dogs on you.”
Several days went by before we got back on friendly terms with Oak-Leaf and she walked back with us after school. We’d fallen out over something silly, or she and Quirze had had one of their squabbles. And then she always found excuses not to come with us: one day she left class later, another she had to run an errand in the village, on yet another she dilly-dallied chatting with her girlfriends by the exit. Walking home without her wasn’t such fun. If she wasn’t there, we didn’t fancy going into the woods to hunt crickets, pick herbs or tell stories. It was if something was missing in the woods — her voice perhaps.
One afternoon, when the scent of spring was in the air, though the weather still wasn’t fine enough for us to climb our plum tree again, Cry-Baby stayed behind in class because the teacher wanted her to do a test to see if she could change class, leave the tiny tots and join us; she seemed big enough and advanced enough in her schoolwork.
While we were waiting, Quirze and I amused ourselves playing a game of marbles with a couple of friends, Gamundi and someone else. Oak-Leaf was chatting to some girls, and from time to time she looked round and glanced our way out of the corner of her eye, as if waiting for us to leave so she could follow. However, that may just have been a hunch of mine, because we’d not walked home together with Oak-Leaf for days.
When Cry-Baby finally appeared, Quirze and I couldn’t leave the game and we told her to wait a moment, we were winning. A minute would do it.
Oak-Leaf left the other girls to go and say hello to Cry-Baby. They sat down on the roadside and chatted while we finished our game.
“Let’s go,” shouted Quirze, standing up and stuffing the marbles we’d won into his pocket.
Oak-Leaf and Cry-Baby got to their feet as well, and I did too. Pleased with our winnings, Quirze walked on ahead, not aware of Oak-Leaf silently bringing up the rear.
“Got over your tantrum?” he finally asked when he turned his head and saw her.
Oak-Leaf said nothing.
“And what about you?” he asked Cry-Baby. “What did the teacher say?”
“That she’ll join our class,” replied Oak-Leaf, anticipating her answer. “She may have to stay behind on other days, because the teacher wants to give her extra lessons by herself so she can catch up. She’s a big girl now and will be joining us. She’ll take her First Communion this year.”
“She’s big is she, this jenny-wren, this runt?” rasped Quirze, not even bothering to look behind him. “Can’t you see how she’s stuck for words when she’s asked a simple question? Have you swallowed your tongue, or do other people have to speak up for you?”
Cry-Baby said nothing. Oak-Leaf glanced at me as if to say my cousin’s tone of voice indicated he was raring for a fight.
We walked silently along the track. After a while, when we were nearing the turning into the woods, the spot where Oak-Leaf went her way, she lowered her voice, as if saying something unimportant: “Núria’s tired. She should take a rest before she goes home.”
Initially we were surprised to hear Cry-Baby’s real name that we never used.
“Tired?” grimaced Quirze, stopping in his tracks. We all followed suit, and waited for her to react.
“The teacher gave her a dictation and a decimal division and she got into a bit of a state,” Oak-Leaf continued in the same vein, as if speaking up for the younger girl. “She’s upset.”
“Upset? What do you mean ‘she’s upset’?” asked Quirze, apparently more surprised than ever.
“She’s a bit scared.”
“What’s up with the ninny?”
Oak-Leaf hesitated for a second. “She’s scared of the teacher of the big class, Mr. Madern… She’s worried about changing class and mates… She’s scared of joining the class with the big kids. She’s afraid they’ll give her the evil eye.”
“She’ll get over that. If she wants to be a big girl, she’ll have to learn to handle teething problems.”
Quirze turned round to walk off down the path, but Oak-Leaf dropped Cry-Baby’s hand and positioned herself in front of him as if to block his way, in a friendly way, not at all aggressively, and she implored him: “Quirze…”
We were astonished to see Quirze look at her calmly, quietly intrigued by the way she continued with that begging tone.
“Quirze… Núria’s not feeling well. Let her rest for a bit.”
Oak-Leaf’s voice sounded eminently reasonable.
“Please, Quirze. I’ll tell you everything I’ve seen in the woods. Whatever you want to know.”
Quirze said nothing and took the turning as if he was leading us into the woods and we all followed.
10
Cry-Baby took First Communion in the chapel in the Saint Camillus monastery. The other farm children taking their First Communion that year did so in the parish church, accompanied by their families, as was obligatory, with the other new communicants in the locality.
It was very hard to get the parish priest to permit that special arrangement. However, Dad Quirze was a tough nut and never softened until he got his own way.