Grandmother rambled on, rather deliriously, as if she was afraid of the silence that would start to pressurize us if she shut up and was afraid of what we might ask Quirze now he was back.
She did shut up when Cry-Baby said: “Someone else is coming.”
My cousin and I couldn’t stop ourselves from looking over the balustrade. We heard the footsteps and chatter of two people wearing surplices who walked into the house.
“There’s two of them,” Cry-Baby told Grandmother.
Grandmother waited for a moment before she spoke. First she closed her eyes out of exhaustion, and then said: “Priests never go out alone, they always take a companion, like civil guards. As our Quirze can’t accompany them when they go back…”
“But Quirze went and came all by himself,” commented Núria knowingly.
“He’s different. Our Quirze is like a cat that sees in the dark and knows every turning. The monks are more fragile. It’s another kind of male.”
Quirze appeared in the gallery doorway, leaned on the frame, staring silently inside.
“Sit down, lad,” Grandmother urged him. “Have something to eat.”
But he said he wasn’t hungry, that he was tired and was going to bed.
No sounds or words reached us from the kitchen. As if the two visitors had melted away. We waited for a while, unsure what to do or say. We nibbled away in silence and now and then Grandmother took deeper breaths, as if she was sighing, her eyes open wide but looking at nothing. When she finally stood up she seemed more tired than usual and told us to leave our scraps on the tray, right there on the table, that we could take all that to the kitchen in the morning. She told Cry-Baby to take the lamp, that I didn’t need it, and they went to their bedroom. I went to the hands’ bedroom, which is where Quirze was.
The sitting room was in darkness and I had to feel my way out. Quirze wasn’t asleep, I could tell because he kept tossing and turning in bed. I stripped off, as quietly as I could. Then, lying on the bed, I waited to see if my cousin said anything, but he just kept turning over like one big bag of nerves.
I didn’t really get to sleep that night. When I did start to doze off, something woke me up and left me weary-eyed, with my mind racing. Quirze’s turns, the creaking doors and windows, the dogs’ barking…the slightest noise woke me up. I tried to block out what was happening in the kitchen and whether the visitors were still there or had left, but I couldn’t and they were all present in the recesses of my brain, sitting around the long table, and I wondered what on earth was happening and why the Saint Camillus pair had come here in the middle of the night, as if some misfortune had blighted the house, and how come you couldn’t hear any shouting.
Suddenly, when I had sunk into a black hole of sleep, a body shaking next to mine woke me up. Alarmed, I opened my eyes and saw the shadow of Quirze sitting on the bed, with the sheets at his feet and the palms of his hands splayed either side of his legs, as if he was afraid of falling.
“Do you hear that?” he asked, gaze averted, as if he was talking to himself.
I looked up. At the very first I heard nothing. Moments later, I heard a noise in the sitting room. And very gentle whispers, like a hand caressing silk. Then, the noise faded, I imagined as they went downstairs. I knew that Uncle Bernat and the hands hadn’t come to sleep there because in summer they preferred to stay in the barn or village where they were free to do what they wanted. And Jan had his cave — what he called his cave — next to the stables, with his belongings, where he didn’t want anyone sticking their noses inside.
Silence fell over the house again. Quirze turned round and repeated his question: “Did you hear something then?”
It came from the front entrance. It sounded like a door slamming but the dogs weren’t barking or anything. And then right away, a distant noise, outside the farmhouse, as if they were chopping up the elder tree. I thought I could also hear the wind whistling through the woods, as if it were a comb parting the leaves and small branches to one side. I imagined the tops of the trees bending over driven by the gusts, huffing, as Grandmother said, or puffing.
“Wait,” said Quirze, standing up.
Barefoot and wearing only the patched underpants they forced us to wear, made from yarn they brought from the factory, which we took off in summer because we got overheated, Quirze opened the door cautiously, and disappeared into the pitch-black sitting room. I waited on my bed, my ears straining to hear what my cousin was doing and where he was heading. But time passed and I heard nothing. My naked feet felt like cotton wool. My eyes bulged wide open, as if my forceful gaze could penetrate the darkness. I didn’t know whether I should get up and rush to my friend’s side. He’d not asked me to do anything, and I wasn’t sure whether my impulse to follow him was curiosity or merely a wish to imitate him and do as he did — be determined, daring, fearless and unabashed.
When I was about to get up, Quirze came in with the same expression as when he’d left. He stretched out on his bed panting and waving his legs in the air, as if he were kicking out at an invisible enemy. I waited for him to calm down, then asked: “What…?”
Quirze took his time, as if he were deciding whether to tell me or not. In the end he spoke in a deadpan tone, as if passing on news that was neutral, that didn’t affect anyone: “Aunt Enriqueta has beat it.”
I didn’t know what to say or how to react. I stretched out next to him, bewildered, and said the first thing that came into my head: “But why…? What happened? Where’s she gone?”
Now he did respond immediately: “Didn’t you cotton on? She couldn’t wait any longer. She’s gone and that’s all there is to it. They’ll tell us why in the morning.”
“How do you know she’s gone? What did you see?”
Quirze turned his back on me, to indicate he wanted to sleep.
“Why has she left?” I persisted.
“Let me get some sleep. We’ll find out tomorrow.”
“How did you find out? Did you see Father Tallafa and the other friar?”
“I’ve seen nobody. My parents are in the kitchen by themselves and they are still chatting. Grandmother got up and is in the rocking chair, but she’s not rocking, she’s crying. And Aunt Enriqueta isn’t in her room, she’s not touched her bed and her chests of drawers are all empty.”
I didn’t dare ask anything else. I shut my eyes and tried to imagine the scenes Quirze had described. Why hadn’t I noticed what even Quirze had got a whiff of? What had he meant when he’d asked if I’d not yet cottoned on? What exactly had I missed? Cry-Baby had clearly missed it as well, because if she’d noticed anything strange she’d have told me.