I sat on a chair opposite, which the table had been laid. Aunt Enriqueta came from the kitchen and sat next to me. She ran her hand over my head, as if tidying my unruly hair, and said: “It’s all nerves. We’ll go back to the farm soon. We must take all your clothes with us. We must sew black bands on the left arm sleeves and dye those that can take the dye. You’ll have to wear mourning clothes for a year; your mother must do so for life.”
29
I stayed at home that night and slept with my mother.
When Mother calmed down, the neighbours began to leave until we were finally left alone with Aunt Ció and Aunt Enriqueta. The neighbours had got supper ready, but Mother refused to eat anything. She got up, sat in a corner of the dining room and watched while we ate.
“My brothers are terrible,” moaned Mother, “only a couple came and they disappeared as soon as they could. And poor Mariona, who wanted to come, couldn’t bring herself to because she’s still afraid of showing her face in the village.
Ció and Enriqueta made excuses for them saying they lived far away, that they probably hadn’t heard the news, that at least the two did come who were in a position to… and other similar arguments.
“But what about Felisa?” Mother asked sorrowfully, “Why didn’t Felisa come?”
Felisa was her youngest sister and Mother was particularly fond of her, even though they saw little of each other, because she’d looked after her from birth; my maternal Grandmother died soon after giving birth, exhausted by bringing so many children into the world, or so people said.
“Felisa has to run a household,” protested Aunt Ció, “what with all those men and all working on the land…”
“You can be sure she’ll come as soon as she can. Everything happened so quickly. Even I,” continued Aunt Enriqueta, “couldn’t get here until yesterday evening. I only found out because you phoned me at work in Vic to say they were taking him from prison in a van.
They argued for a while about whether it would be better for me to stay a few days or a few weeks to keep my mother company, or whether I should go back to the farm in the summer holidays that were almost upon us, saying that time would decide most things. They seemed so convinced that time solves so many problems but I didn’t understand how time by itself could solve anything, I felt the hours and days went by and nothing changed; I was impressed by the fact that clocks were there to calculate time and only went round and round to the same points, it was always six or twelve again, I felt the hands turned in a void, a labyrinth of hours from which they could find no exit, and that the only signs they left of its passing over things and people were layers of dust or wrinkled skin, so I thought it was stupid when a grownup said time was the great healer, when even I could see how the passage of time only ravaged everything, messed everything up, put everything out of joint. Time only mattered when you looked back. Time was our anxious longing for Father to come back, time was Father’s death. Time was death.
After lunch, they decided it would be best for me to go back to the farm the very next morning; after everything that had happened in the cemetery with the priest and two dignitaries, it would be best not to show my face in the parish school so soon. Aunt Enriqueta could stay on a few days to keep Mother company. Bernat would collect me the next morning and that night I’d stay alone with my mother. Aunt Enriqueta would return to the farm that night to collect her things so she could spend the necessary time with my mother; as soon as she finished work in Vic she’d catch the bus, rather than return to the farm. It seemed like the right solution for everyone.
While they said their goodbyes, Mother and Ció took the opportunity of a moment when Aunt Enriqueta was combing her hair in the bathroom to have a few of their quiet words on the side.
“It will do her good to spend a few days away from home and the village gossip,” commented Ció. “See if you can persuade her to go back to Pere Màrtir. Tell her where her bad ways might lead her. And that she’ll never get a man like him again. She must set her stall out soon. She’s no time to waste.”
“I hope she listens,” said Mother, “but I don’t know if I can pull that off.”
The two aunts walked off arm in arm as the mists settled over the village again. And no sooner had the door shut than two neighbours who must have been watching out called to ask if we needed anything. Mother said no, thank you very much, that she was feeling better now, and from the doorstep she looked out towards the path that climbs up the nearby hillock and her eyes locked on an approaching figure, a basket over her arm, walking rather on the tilt, as if she had a limp.
“Ay!” Mother put her hand over her mouth and her eyes lit up, as if she’d seen a ghost. “I’d swear that’s Felisa!”
She rushed out to greet her with open arms and the neighbours discreetly shut their doors behind them. Aunt Felisa, with her hair combed back, her sunburnt face, small eyes, simple black dress, thick grey stockings, black espadrilles and shy smile, put her basket on the ground and silently swayed her head as she hugged Mother. She looked on the wild side, just as I remembered her from the two or three times I’d seen her; Mother used to say that her family were a difficult peasant lot.
“You shouldn’t have come!” said Mother, showering her with kisses. “You have such a lot of work at home, and it’s a long walk to get here, you shouldn’t have bothered. I’d have come to see you.”
Aunt Felisa patted me on the head and we all went indoors.
The basket contained eggs, a bottle of milk, a white loaf and a couple of fresh cheeses. While Aunt Felisa spread them on the kitchen table, Mother told her what had happened, but left out her final skirmish with the bigwigs. Aunt Felisa listened in silence. I felt exhausted and listened with no real interest, sitting on a chair from the dining room.
“We found out last night, when Peret came back from the village. I couldn’t escape any earlier. Peret and Pau came, I expect you saw them? Feliu sends his apologies, and says you’ll soon be seeing him.”
Peret and Pau were the uncles who had come to the cemetery and had a strip torn off them by Mother when they asked for the coffin lid to be lifted so they could take a last look at the deceased.
The two sisters stayed in the kitchen for ages, and talked everything over while they heated up a saucepan of milk and toasted bread on the grill over the oven. They kept lamenting and exclaiming and remembering what had happened from the moment he was arrested and put in the infirmary to his death. By the time they took their supper into the dining room, they seemed to have wrung that story dry.
“He perked up for a couple of days, just before he died. As if he’d made one last effort to see us outside the infirmary.”
Mother kept repeating that Aunt Felisa shouldn’t have put herself out to come, and her sister said she couldn’t stay to sleep, that she’d be off straight after supper.
“But it’s pitch-black out there!” erupted Mother, alarmed. “How can you go back at this time of night, you won’t be able to find the path, or see where you’re putting your feet? At least stay here until early morning.”
“I’ll feel even less like it in the morning. I can’t abandon the house, you know, I’m the only woman and as soon as dawn breaks, the men will expect everything to be ready. They all get up when it’s still dark.”
“One day won’t matter,” insisted Mother. “We’ve got so much to talk about! We’ve both been so rushed off our feet we’ve not had time to get together.”
“I’ve so much I want to tell you!” sighed Aunt Felisa.
I started on my supper while they went in and out of the kitchen on any pretext, telling each other things in a tone that seemed both complaining and reassuring, slipping sentences in that didn’t make any sense, until I realized they weren’t really saying what was on their mind — my presence prevented them. They sat down at the table for a moment and Mother pecked at a piece of bread or took a sip of milk but that was all; she said she wasn’t hungry, that she couldn’t get anything down, and Aunt Felisa didn’t manage even that. When I had finished, Mother told me to go to sleep, to lie on my bed and rest, I’d fall asleep soon enough, fast asleep at that, she said, and I realized how much I was in their way and went off to my bedroom. From my bed, I could hear their whispering, which got louder and louder as if they felt they could confide now they were all alone and confident I wasn’t listening