“She never tells us anything,” I couldn’t soften the touch of rancour in my voice.
“She must have left it for me come and tell you. Aunt Ció has also had days with lots of work and lots of upsets, like us, so don’t blame her for anything. I expect she intended telling you about it but with all her ups-and-downs she couldn’t find the right moment.”
She paused. In the meanwhile she changed her stance, as if trying to get more comfortable; she folded her arms and rested her elbows on the edge of the table, in a stiff, authoritarian pose, then unfolded them, lay her palms upwards on the table, looked at the ceiling, and said: “I won’t do anything you don’t want. If you want to go with them, I’ll let you, but if you’d rather stay at home, you can. It’s your home. Grandmother, your uncle and aunt, have done enough, far too much for us over these last few years. You can’t stay here any longer. Núria will be off too, as soon as your Uncle Fonso has settled into his new life in France, I think he’s already found work in a vineyard near Perpignan. You must tell me. As I am now, by myself, I can’t do any more for you, in terms of your schooling, I mean. I’ve also spoken to the priest in the parish school and he thinks that if you have an opportunity to study, you should. When he told me what the books cost, and only the books, I took fright: almost two weeks’ wages from the factory. What would we live on if I had to pay for all that?”
Mother’s face was a blur, a fog of anxiety erased her from my field of vision. It was that same voice, that same spiel, the leprosy of poverty one couldn’t jettison, that neither of us could jettison because her voice, her anguish and laments passed the infection to me. Her voice brought me back yet again to the streets in our town showing off my First Communion outfit, strutting my stuff before friends and acquaintances, pressuring them into giving me a small present, a memento, charity. Or the visits, by her side, to the local toffs, factory owners and powers-that-be, to beg them to do something to get Father out of prison, out of hospital and off the death sentence. When I was with her I was always under the impression that I was witnessing a mammoth struggle, one that was lost before it was started, to cast off the wretchedness, penury and misfortune that had pursued us ever since the pair had foolishly left the grandparents’ farm, had gone far from the silent, tranquil refuge of the forest. I admired that woman who fought tirelessly, fiercely, in her battle against the scourge of poverty, yet rebelled when for convenience’s sake, or clear-sightedly, she floundered in that parasitic swamp of shame, as if the fate we confronted was inescapable.
“It’ll only be for a period and you can come back whenever you want, naturally. It will always be your home, you know. I’ll come to see you. Mr. and Mrs. Manubens have been very generous. They don’t have children and want to help you to get on in life, if you can manage it. Didn’t you say you’d like to be a doctor?”
I shook my head. A doctor? Perhaps I did once say that, I expect under the influence of the mystery of Saint Camillus, the young man with TB and the superior manners of elegant, affable gentlemen, the doctors I’d met in town. However, I now felt quite differently, I was now beginning to feel the bitter taste of hatred I’d discovered at the Novíssima, although less intensely, though I knew I could stir up that inner fire now fuelled by Mother’s words. I didn’t want to, the need to do justice to my mother prevented me, but it made it crystal clear that I must distance myself from her if I didn’t want her to infect me with the filth of poverty. Even though I didn’t like books and found studying hard, I would clear off so I could find work elsewhere, far away, where the annoying, flattening fumes that reduced me to zero couldn’t floor me.
“You must get used to the idea that they are like godparents. I think their idea later is to see if they can get you into the Seminary, they’re the people who’ve given most for the new building…but that’s because they’re so pious — and reputed to be sanctimonious — it would seem odd if they didn’t try to hook you into all that, apparently they are already the religious godfathers of two or three seminarians, but don’t worry your head about that, make the most you can of your schooling and when you see where you’re heading, we can talk again.”
“They never mentioned the Seminary to me.”
“No, I’m the one telling you. You’ll live with them, in their house, and they’ll send you to a good school… the Escolapians of Mercy, they said, for your secondary education.”
“I thought it was going to be Saint Michael’s, everyone goes to Saint Michael of the Saints, in Vic.”
My mother looked taken aback.
“St. Michael’s? No, the Escolapians are in Igualada. Mr. and Mrs. Manubens have had a mansion built on the city outskirts, and that’s where they’re going to live, if they haven’t already. They own a knitting factory there that’s going very well, it’s what brings them the most money now, much more than their farms, and they want to extend the business, Napkin Lolita told me. So you thought it would be Vic? Perhaps they said Vic so as not to panic you, because that would be closer to home.”
I nodded. I didn’t know whether to be overjoyed or disappointed by the latest news. I hadn’t a clue where Igualada was, but I didn’t feel disappointed. I had decided to leave, to go wherever. I started to be intrigued by this unknown city.
“Igualada isn’t very far, but there’s no direct train, you have to go to Barcelona and catch a train in another station, they’re not the same trains from Puigcerdà, it’s another company. I don’t know what it’s called.”
I stiffened my resolve, looked her straight in the eyes and said: “Yes.”
Mother seemed mightily relieved.
“Are you sure? You’re not doing it for my sake? I told you I didn’t mind one way or the other.”
I nodded once again. What else did I have to say for her to understand that I accepted the deal and wanted out.
Then she got up, went over to the sink and poured out a glass of water. She walked back to the table with the glass and placed it in front of me as if I’d asked her for it.
“Drink this,” she said. “Your throat’s dry and you’re finding it hard to swallow.”
I took the glass, reacting mechanically, and downed it in one gulp.
“You see?” she said, removing the dirty glass. “Now we’ll go and tell Aunt Ció and Grandmother what you’ve decided. They’ll be so delighted.”
39
From the moment everybody found out I’d accepted Mr. and Mrs. Manubens as my godparents, they all started to treat me differently. Initially I thought I was imagining that, because the decision I’d taken to distance myself from the world I’d known to that point made me more of a loner, a more reflective, self-absorbed individual, as if I’d been branded with a distinguishing mark or was surrounded by the luminous aura I’d seen in religious prints of the saints or God’s chosen.
However, they were looking at me differently. The comments they made on any matter whatsoever seemed to touch on the issue directly or indirectly: “Eat well, we don’t want the masters to think we’ve taught you to be fussy,” “Don’t dirty your hands, that’s not the kind of work for you,” or “Keep your clothes tidy, we don’t know what you’ll have to take or if you’ll need new outfits,” and so on. Even Quirze, who’d never put himself out over anything, now tried to take on the hardest jobs when we had to work together, and Cry-Baby, who already seemed to be living in a different world, when she found out we’d not be seeing any more of each other when the new school year began, dragged me along to play among the hazel trees more often, and our encounters in the deep shadows from the leaves and green hazels were more sensitive — Grandmother always said “sensitive” when something moved her deeply or she said “he’s very sensitive” when she spoke of someone who was deeply affected by life’s adversity or spiteful remarks made by others — as if our first play and tentative explorations had been transformed into profound interpenetration, total trust, a much more intense emotion than the contact between our bodies. She continued to offer herself passively, as if she’d lost her will or was daydreaming, but she responded to everything I initiated, coupled into my movements and reacted to my every gesture, eyes closed and a loving smile on her face.