But she ignored us and walked through the gallery and sitting room as if in a trance; she said Grandmother Mercè, Aunt Ció and Aunt Enriqueta wanted her to show off her dress the whole day and they kept making her go to and fro and parade across the sitting room so they could see her properly, like a bride, who would never be as dazzling as she was then, and they wouldn’t let her sit down, so her feet were sore, she added.
We had lunch upstairs in the summer dining room, and the array of plates gleamed more brightly than ever, and stood out against the lurid blue of the walls, a bright fair-ground blue, the most revolting, artificial blue possible that stung your eyes and convinced you they should strip it off that very minute.
“They’re a left over from the Carlist war,” Grandmother always told visitors, “when the owners still lived here. One day they’ll remember all the crockery they left and take it to their house in Vic or flat in Barcelona, and none of this furniture will be left. They’re not short of a house or two.”
Father Tafalla and the bubbly, bald novice accompanying him were the only people invited. Ció, Aunt Enriqueta and Mother cooked and served lunch, ferrying trays continually from downstairs kitchen to upstairs dining room. Grandmother was head at one end of the table and Father Tafalla at the other, with Dad Quirze, Bernat, Jan the oldest hand and almost one of the family, the young novice and we three, Quirze, Cry-Baby, still dressed up to the nines, and me along the sides.
Grandmother and the Father Superior initially drove the conversation. They talked about the medicinal herbs Grandmother collected and dried out in the attic and compared her way of doing things to the friars’ methods and explained the places in the woods where they found — Grandmother said “scavenged”—the different species; then they talked about the old folk in the nearby farmhouses and their ailments and when the cannelloni was finished and they brought up the capons in a couple of earthenware dishes, they exchanged cooking tips, regretting the fact the women labouring over the stove couldn’t be there to add a practical touch to their recipes.
“Never feel sorry for the cooks,” laughed Grandmother. “Just remember how they never bring anything to the table they haven’t already tasted. They are the first to enjoy the flavours. They have healthy appetites and always dip into the dishes they’re cooking.”
Now and then she’d look our way and encourage us: “Hey, you starving kids! What a spread!”
I reckoned Grandmother chose lovely words to enhance the feast, as if they were her present to her granddaughter, because it was the first time I’d heard them.
Sullen as ever, Dad Quirze’s eyes glinted and he merely nodded, going along with everything that was said, adding commonplaces like: “You bet!” “God willing!” “They can eat as much as they want. If only people ate as well in towns and cities! That crew, you know…!”
Nevertheless, halfway through the meal, perhaps spurred on by the continuous flow of red wine from bottle to glass they downed with such pleasure, he began to talk to the young novice sitting next to him: “Well…?” he asked. “Isn’t this tastier than the reheated hash they serve up in the monastery?”
The youth smiled shyly and nodded. The delicate sky-blue of his eyes was in stark contrast to the loud, garish blue of the walls and ceiling. He had white, fragile skin, an amiable, symmetrically featured face, a straight nose, thin, finely curved eyebrows, cheeks that looked to have endured lots of penitence, small ears, fleshy red lips and a head that was so bald there was no way of telling whether his crown was shaved down the middle of his skull, what friars called a tonsure, or not.
“What did you say your name was, Brother?” asked Dad Quirze.
“Xavier,” replied the novice respectfully.
“Is that your real name or the one they gave you when you entered the monastery?”
“De veritat…” the young man spoke Catalan with a clipped northern Spanish accent.
“You’re from up north, right? Nearly all the friars that join Saint Camillus are northeners. Most are Navarrese, like the Superior.”
“Yes, from Tudela, but I lived in Barcelona for a while…”
“How long you got left on the ranch before you finish your studies?” Dad Quirze pursued what seemed like an interrogation.
“Five…”
Dad Quirze pursed his lips as if to whistle. “Crikey!” he exclaimed, “how do you manage the business of living without a family, like a rooster without a coop to bed down in? You know what I mean…”
The novice turned as red as a hot coal and didn’t know what to say. His Superior spoke on his behalf and rescued him from his quandary: “We religious folk comprise a family that is as numerous, if not more, than yours, and much larger than most families living in towns and cities. Our family is the whole community, all our brothers and, beyond that, all the faithful in the big family of Christianity.”
Dad Quirze’s face went bright red and his eyes sparked. He winked at Father Tafalla and continued tongue-in-cheek: “Family, family… Let’s be straight about this. A family of men doesn’t serve the same ends as a family of couples, of men and women… Is that clear enough?”
“There are many families… and within families, there are families and families…”
“I’d prefer to say that there are couples and couples…” Dad Quirze was unrelenting and his obstinacy dismayed everyone; we’d never known him to be so vociferous. “Every family is more or less the same, but every couple is different, has different problems…”
Aunt Enriqueta, who’d ground to a halt by one of the corner cupboards, holding a tray of nut and dried fruit desserts, chipped in to break the logjam: “Everyone has a right to his opinion and they’re all good,” her voice sounded strained, as if she was reluctant to intervene or was upset by the subject they were broaching. “They have their problems in the monastery, as we all do.”
Dad Quirze was shut up by his sister-in-law’s remarks. After a moment’s silence, when he’d looked Aunt Enriqueta up and down, as if thinking through his response, he began sarcastically: “And what do you know about these things?”
“I know as much as the next…” Now it was Aunt Enriqueta’s turn to blush a bright red, while she looked round and opened the corner cupboard door to take out another dish.
“Woe betide the man whose only knowledge is what he’s been taught!” Dad Quirze laughed slyly. “That’s what you always reckon, don’t you, Grandmother?”
Grandmother nodded anxiously, immediately made an effort to get up, and then said, giving the conversation another twist: “Why don’t we eat our desserts and drink our coffee in the gallery? There’s a delicious sun that’s not reached here yet. And while we’re about it, we can take photos for the goblins.”
Grandmother’s suggestion threw everything into the air. All those eating jumped to their feet; we were the first to do so to help the old lady extricate herself from her end of the table, and everybody gradually went into the nearby gallery commenting: “Now that’s a real brainwave! A First Communion photo without a photographer!”
“We could have arranged one!” said Bernat. “This only happens once in a blue moon.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” growled Dad Quirze. “What’s the point of a photograph at her age when her body hasn’t yet grown and filled out, when she’s still got to grow into a proper woman? It would be like photographing a silk worm before it’s changed into a moth.”
“But it’s a memento…” retorted Aunt Enriqueta who’d started spreading the cloth on the long table in the gallery and setting out the dessert dishes and plates. “When the years have gone by, we all love to see what we looked like when we were little.”