“Vocation will come later,” explained his wife. “Given all that has happened, it’s hardly surprising you’ve never given all this a thought. You’ll see everything much more clearly once you’ve seen a few exemplary individuals and received good advice. One must give God time to make his presence felt. We are contributing to the rebuilding of the seminary, and you’ll be able to enter whenever you want, when you feel the vocation, because clearly we do understand that a seminary is not simply a matter of bricks and mortar.”
“Your secondary school certificate will help you do whatever you want, whenever you want…” said Mr. Manubens, now opening his arms in an all-embracing gesture.
“We have a big house and you’ll have plenty of room to study and accommodate everything else.”
Uncle Quirze swayed the top half of his body as if he was sitting in a rocking chair, forwards and backwards, gently, nervously, his palms splayed over his knees, his eyes closed, as if he was feeling uncomfortable. Aunt Ció was quick to interject: “Of course, we’ve already talked it over with your mother, and she will do whatever you say, whatever is best for you. It will also be a sacrifice for her, you being away from home and not seeing you so often, but you’ve got used to that in recent years, to being apart, I mean, and seeing each other only at Christmas and a few festive holidays…”
“But you should also see it as your way to help her,” Mrs. Manubens was quick to add, “one more mouth to feed is a burden, whatever people may say, particularly if it’s not bringing in a weekly wage, and more work after a day in the factory and everything that involves, cleaning, washing, mending… The poor woman needs a bit of respite now. Think of it as a sacrifice you are making on her behalf, for her well-being.”
“And, of course, you’d be able to see her whenever you wish,” chimed in Mr. Manubens in that patronizing tone of his, as if it was impossible to envisage that wasn’t part of the deal, “just as she can come to see you whenever you want, you’ll be in regular contact. I don’t think you’ll pine for each other.”
“It will be just like it is now,” concluded Aunt Ció out of good will rather than any conviction, “but different. Instead of being here with us, you’ll be with them and will be able to continue your schooling. Here you’d end up on the land, like Quirze your cousin, or in town, you’d end up in an arsehole of a factory, like most people.”
“From that point of view…” said Dad Quirze, who’d not said a word in all that time and now spoke hesitantly, as if duty-bound to take part, “one sees it in quite another light, naturally.”
But he didn’t pinpoint what that light was previously, or now. He seemed about to say something else, and everybody looked at him, convinced he would, but he shut his eyes again, rocked to and fro and said not another word.
“Lady Luck has passed your way,” added Aunt Ció, looking into my eyes, “and people say she only passes your way once, and then flies off for evermore if you don’t take her up. It’s an opportunity not everyone gets, with people you know, friends, who are doing what they do out of good will.”
“In that case, I say…” Uncle Quirze spoke up once again, though he didn’t open his eyes or stop rocking.
I thought I caught a glimmer of sadness in Aunt Ció’s eyes, something that prevented the bright spark of her usual good temper from sparkling. A moment of silence ensued, as we waited to see if Uncle Quirze wanted to add anything, but when a while passed and the silence began to weigh heavily, Mr. Manubens went on: “If you like, we can enrol you in the school for next year, so as to safeguard your place, and we will ask for an appointment to see Mossèn Vinyeta, the headmaster, so he can meet the boy and tell us what we must do to get him properly ready for his entry there.”
“If needs be, we will pay for a private teacher,” his wife chimed in, solicitously. “And a clever young seminarian will come to our house every week and give you extra lessons so you can make the grade.”
That offer seemed to be the final touch that clinched it with everybody. A private teacher and a clever seminarian were the icing on the cake! Who could ever afford such an expense? How could anyone refuse the avalanche of good fortune now on offer? To reject all that wouldn’t just have been crazy, but a mark of disrespect our masters didn’t deserve, something their tenant-farmers couldn’t allow themselves. Our masters were our masters! Look out if you refuse their offers! It was as if a horn of abundance had been opened. Even Uncle Quirze opened his eyes and nodded, repeating: “In that case, it’s the best…the best solution all round.”
“Isn’t it just?” said Aunt Ció. “So what do you think, Andreu? What do you say?”
I felt a pressure that wasn’t going to go away and nodded. I’d like to have seen the scenario rather more clearly and had time to think it over by myself and talk it over with someone else, Mr. Madern perhaps, but the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Manubens compelled me at the very least to show my gratitude, but the words weren’t forthcoming. In my heart of hearts, in the depths of the forest, as Grandmother would have said, something dark and secret existed that I didn’t understand, an insurmountable obstacle I’d yet to discover, though my instinct warned me it was lurking round a bend on that path. I only managed to articulate a “Whatever you want…, yes…”
Mr. Manubens stood up and we all followed suit. Aunt Ció came over, took my head and squeezed it against her tummy while in her most loving voice, the voice I knew she kept for occasions of utmost despair, she murmured softly, as if she didn’t want the others to notice any change of tone: “Everything will turn out fine, you just see. We’ll help you get on and that’s all there is to it!”
35
Mr. and Mrs. Manubens were travelling in a new car they’d left in the shade from the elder tree, a black car the Quirzes, father and son, stared at as if it were one of the seven wonders… It was driven by an oldish chauffeur who declined to enter the house and waited outside smoking, leaning against the tree. They stood and admired the car as it drove away into the distance, enveloped in a cloud of dust it threw up; then father and son went down to the stables and my aunt and I walked to the kitchen. Cry-Baby stretched out her arms helping Grandmother to skein her wool. Neither asked about the visit, but Aunt Ció started to tell her how it had gone, before Aunt Enriqueta arrived. Grandmother listened but made no comment.
“It all went very well,” Aunt Ció put it briefly. “I think everybody was pleased. The owners will see to everything. They’ll treat him like a son, you can be sure of that.”
Grandmother looked at me and I thought her eyes shone more intensely behind her glasses. After a few seconds she muttered: “If it’s for his good…”
Later when Aunt Enriqueta came from work, Aunt Ció told her about the meeting in greater detail. Aunt Enriqueta had stopped going to keep my mother company a few days ago: they had agreed that once the first mourning was over, as they called it, she’d pay the occasional visit and if she needed her company, she could send her a note via the errand boy or conductor on the local bus service that went to Vic two or three times a day.
Aunt Enriqueta sat at the table and listened carefully to every word her big sister uttered. When she finished, she stood up and shouted in a voice that shook with repressed rage: “So what did you expect poor Florència to say in the state she’s in?”
Her reaction surprised everybody in the kitchen.