The Winterlings (10 page)

To be a part of the community in Tierra de Chá, you had to go every evening to the tavern, a dive smelling of must and loneliness with a low roof, attended by a redhead and his wife who were always leaning on the worm-eaten bar. There was no point passing by every once in a while. At six o'clock every evening, either you were in the tavern or you weren't. Among the sticky fly-strips that hung from the walls, folks got together to play card games like
la
brisca
or
tute
, have a few drinks, watch the television, and tell each other stories.

On the counter there was an oil lamp, and hanging from the wall there was a calendar with a faded photograph of the Pope. The redhead, leaning forward slightly, listened carefully to the conversations around him. His wife, her eyes on the television, rinsed out the empty soft-drink bottles in a bucket, gesticulating to herself.

There were only two television sets in the whole village: one belonged to the priest (although he denied it and kept it hidden), and the other one was in the tavern. It was an old piece of junk that gave off a blurry picture in black-and-white that worked well enough to bring in the customers.

Uncle Rosendo used to sit at a nearby table, on a cask or an old crate. He'd arrive at around four o'clock, when his classes finished, and begin ordering drinks. Little by little, his cheeks lit up, his nose went red, and his eyes went shiny. He began to recite poetry and talk nonsense. At seven o'clock on the dot, the cask he'd been sitting on would roll backwards with a crash, and he'd be laid out on the ground like a toad.

That was when the innkeeper would send word to Meis' Widow.

Every afternoon went the same way.

Boom
, and the innkeeper would send word to the Widow, who in fact was no longer a widow.

His wife would come in their wagon, loaded with freshly cut grass, pulled along by the cow.

‘I'm telling you I saw her myself last night, she was flying!' sputtered Uncle Rosendo, referring to his wife, who was coming through the door. ‘Flying above our marriage bed!'

‘You ought to stop drinking!' yelled Tristán from another table. ‘Christ, if I had as much free time as you … If my birds didn't keep me to such a tight schedule … The amount of things I could get done! Don't you realise that the booze is making you see things?'

‘That's not true, we only see what we already know,' replied Uncle Rosendo solemnly.

Tristán, the other man, would never be able to understand such a deep philosophical thought.

‘You shouldn't be drinking; you've got your exam soon. Have you studied all the lessons?'

For a moment, Rosendo was transfixed. He thought of his wife's face, which looked like a bedbug. He realised that the worst thing in the world that could happen to him would be to fail the exam, because he'd never have the courage to return to Tierra de Chá. He'd have to sleep in the flop-house, in a room that smelt like used towels.

But after a moment, he came out of his trance.

‘There are those who do things, and there are those who tell others what they should do. You, Tristán, belong to the second group. I'm telling you I saw the Widow flying, just like a witch.'

‘How about a bit of respect for your wife!' came a call from across the tavern.

But Uncle Rosendo had no respect at all for his wife. He was convinced that the Widow was pleased that he got drunk every afternoon, because deep down, he knew that what pleased the Widow most was exactly what she said displeased her.

He had all kinds of theories for explaining life, and for exploring the labyrinth of his wife's mind — it was himself that he failed to understand.

In the first place, he couldn't understand why he had married a woman like her — so different to him — who did nothing but talk about her deceased husband. Meis' Widow: if people still called her that it was because, in truth, that's how she behaved. Sometimes, when she wasn't paying attention, he followed her around the house. When she went into the living room, she would speak to the portrait of her dead husband and blow him kisses.

She was as ugly as Satan. Her skin was the colour of ash, and her hair stuck to her face. The worst thing was that she wasn't affectionate at all. Not even when she came to pick him up in the wagon would she show a hint of tenderness. Every morning, Uncle Rosendo woke up and asked himself what he was doing with this woman who hadn't even stopped mourning for her previous husband. He'd consider leaving her, and yet, when night fell, he still hadn't done it. He would get drunk, and she would come and get him in the wagon. Life — not people or things — imposed its way on the world, and no matter how he tried, he couldn't change a thing.

As a young man, Uncle Rosendo had known other women, but he always knew he would never marry. He got to know the Widow around the hearth at the Winterlings' house, when Don Reinaldo was still alive. Recently widowed then, she would purse her lips as if blowing kisses into the air, and he would respond by blushing deeply and taking off his cap. After the war, everything happened very quickly. In the afternoons, the Widow would wait for him by the fountain in the square. He was the country teacher, and while they listened to the sound of water falling he would speak to her of poetry, of geography, and even of philosophy.

‘Please stop,' she would interrupt, placing her palm over his mouth. ‘I've never been one of those women of letters. I don't even like books.'

‘Well, you should hear one of Rosalía de Castro's poems,
Adiós, adiós, prenda do meu corazón,'
he would reply, winking. ‘By the way — what's your name?'

‘The Widow. Meis' Widow.'

‘I know that's what they call you. But that's not a name — what are you really called?'

‘Well, I haven't got another one. You're not an Uncle either, but everyone calls you that.'

‘Give me a kiss.'

‘No way! My husband might see us.'

Back then, Uncle Rosendo thought she was losing her marbles. He didn't understand why he was attracted to a woman like her, who was only interested in her dead husband.

‘Your husband is dead.'

She wrinkled her brow.

‘So what?'

Uncle Rosendo was made of other stuff; this was obvious to everyone. He was twenty years old the first time he heard a poem. As a matter of fact, it was by the hearth of the Winterlings' grandfather that he had heard it. He couldn't remember who had read it, perhaps it was one of Don Reinaldo's friends — he was visited back then by mayors, lawyers, poets, and unionists — or perhaps Don Reinaldo himself.

The poem was about the passage of time, about love and solitude, or something like that. Things that are simple but profound — you never know quite what a poet speaks about, because the poet always speaks of himself. But while he listened to those words (cold, birds chased by the light, lime and liver) he began to feel a strange tingling all over his body. When the reading was over, he remained by the fire, unable to take his eyes off the spot where the man had read, his cheeks flushed. He was startled.

Until then, Uncle Rosendo had never thought that things like the passage of time, solitude, lime, and livers could move one profoundly. Until that man had spoken of it in such beautiful words, he hadn't known that love could be a source of disquiet and that life was an extraordinary thing.

And life
was
an extraordinary thing. He began to read poetry and teach it to the children. Without realising, he was teaching not only poetry but all kinds of universal knowledge — from the moment when Eve felt the urge to eat fruit in the Garden of Eden and stretched her arm out for an apple, to the time of Napoleon and his tumultuous Carlist wars. There were bits and pieces of arithmetic, the names of the continents, and the names of some African animals, like the lion and the giraffe. Some parents paid him with packages of flour or corn, while others wondered about the point of literacy, given that there was absolutely nothing in the village to read.

He set up the school in the hayloft of his own house. On the outside he put up a sign that said ‘Tierra de Chá Children's School', and beneath that ‘Uncle Rosendo, Country Teacher'. He brought in snakes and bats to show the children. He would tell them: there's something in my coat pocket for you. And the children, who came from all over, walking on the paths through the forest, would put their hands inside. The only reason he taught was because he himself wanted to keep learning.

He also discovered that poetry was favoured by the type of woman he had always fancied, but that had never fancied him.

One day shortly after this, the Widow came into the barn. She said that she didn't like poetry, but that she was impressed by the school. Rosendo began trembling. Without knowing why, he threw his cap to the ground, yelled out ‘Jeepers!', and pushed the Widow to the wall, trying to kiss her.

‘Not until we're married,' she said without much surprise, disengaging herself.

‘What difference does that make?' He asked, perplexed.

‘My husband might see us.'

That was when Uncle Rosendo declared he'd never speak to that crazy woman again.

They got married in the village church — the same one in which she had married the first time — on the same day of the same month, because the Widow said that they wouldn't offend her husband that way.

At the reception, when it came time for dessert and cigars, she disappeared. After looking for her everywhere, they found her washing herself in the swimming pool. Her explanation was that she was telling her dead husband how it all had gone.

Also to avoid causing offense, she refused to get married in white, and she didn't even take off her black mourning shawl on her wedding night. On this occasion, Rosendo held his tongue.

The Widow had told him that the mourning period for a grandparent was a year, for a sibling it was two, for a parent it was three, and for a child or a spouse, a lifetime. And so, out of respect, he didn't say anything. He knew a fair amount about geography, algebra, and poetry, but he didn't know enough about that grey illness of the mind called mourning to venture an opinion.

Uncle Rosendo had envisaged that marriage would bring about a better life, imagining that perhaps the Widow would soften her harsh ways. But right from the start, it was his wife who was in charge. She ridiculed him in front of others, and everything he did seemed wrong to her. After several years of marriage, the Widow was as much a virgin (if she ever had been) and as much a widow as the very first day.

In the village, they said that when her first husband died, the Widow made a cruel commitment. Because she could no longer be with the man she loved, she decided that she would never belong to another. She swore against remarriage. And what better way to achieve this than by marrying Uncle Rosendo, the village idiot?

With time, he got tired of being in the house with her, breathing in her dead husband's air. And so with no children (because how could there be children?), he became a regular at the tavern. He began to get drunk every afternoon, and, thanks to this, many repressed memories inside him were set free.

Some days, after Saladina was finished at Mr Tenderlove's clinic, the Winterlings would pass by the tavern. Seeing them there, Uncle Rosendo would remember Don Reinaldo, and would talk of the old times. He said, with yearning, that their grandfather had been one of the best friends he had ever had, and that the village had never been the same without him. Once he warmed up, there was no stopping him, and the Winterlings noticed how the others bustled about telling him to shut up, nudging him in the side or gesturing at him.

One day, he told them about how Don Reinaldo had cured a man of ‘his own childhood'. The poor man couldn't stop saying ‘no'. From the moment he got up until he went to sleep, he refused everything: his mother, his wife and kids, work, the wine they served him at the tavern, the rain, the flowers, and the sun. When Don Reinaldo arrived at his house, he'd taken off his corduroy jacket and got into bed with him. He spent the night there, sharing voices, nightmares, and sweat, and in the morning, the man felt much better.

‘Oh, he was a fine man!' added Uncle Rosendo. ‘He didn't deserve what he got. He truly was everyone's doctor, until they accused him of being a witch doctor and a Bolshevik. He thought that wealth was poorly shared out, and that it was a social injustice not to help the most needy. That was all. Don Reinaldo came out of prison all anxious; he felt persecuted by everyone. He never understood why they put him in there. The fear turned his mind. He started to do strange things … That's when …'

Suddenly, the innkeeper turned up the volume on the television.

‘… as I was saying,' continued Uncle Rosendo, trying to make his voice heard over the TV announcer. ‘But that's when they gave poor Tristán a beating too. I don't know … those gun-crazy folks came along shouting and shooting in the air. No one got away from them.'

It wasn't quite seven o'clock, but after that comment, someone pulled him off his seat, bringing forward his nightly tumble.

Boom.

Shortly thereafter, slightly stooped, Meis' Widow jumped down from her wagon.