The Winterlings (13 page)

‘You quack! You shouldn't be fixing people's mouths!' screeched Dolores in a rage. ‘You're not qualified!'

‘Qualified, whoop-whoop!' began Saladina from the floor, rolling over with laughter. ‘Quaaaaalifiiiiieeed, whoop-Tender-green, green bottles, bada-whoop-qualified hanging on the wall!'

Dolores dismissed the dental mechanic, who, put out by such a slight, lit out for the main road as fast as he could, slightly stooped over. Then she helped her sister get into bed. Saladina went upstairs without missing a beat in her song,
whoop-Tenderlove-bada-whoop qualifieeeeeed
.

Once she had lain her sister down, the Winterling set about attending to — or rather, getting rid of — Ramón, who had been greatly amused by the spectacle, and was still waiting for his glass of milk.

The Winterling explained that there wasn't any milk because the cow hadn't been milked yet; in fact, it was high time to do that but between one thing and the other, she hadn't been able to do it. Jesus, couldn't he hear her mooing? No, Ramón couldn't hear it. Well, just when you arrived, I was getting ready to milk her.
There's no milk, but I can offer you anise
. Dolores hurried to explain that a doctor in Coruña had prescribed anise to cure Saladina from a bout of flatulence, and what do you know, she took a liking to the remedy, and now is something of a drinker.
So you see
… but Ramón wasn't laughing. He was lost in thought.

‘I want the piece of paper,' he said suddenly. ‘You might as well go and get it because that's what I came here for.'

He got up quickly, and said that while she looked for the contract from the sale of the brain, he'd milk the cow himself, and that it would bring back fond memories.

It was early, one of those bright mornings close to summer. Smoke over the tiled roofs. The pealing of bells. Lately, there had been heavy storms that had forced them to stay indoors. But that day, all was calm in the countryside. The sun had that brilliance that shines through after a storm, when the air is clean and fresh. From time to time, they could hear Saladina singing and sobbing, although more and more faintly each time. Finally, she seemed to have fallen asleep.

Through the window, Dolores saw Ramón rummaging around in the shed. Among the rusty plough and the other farm tools, he was searching for something. She saw him go back into the cowshed, the milk pail clinking against his leg.

As children, before the outbreak of the war, the Winterlings and Little Ramón had been playmates. Even though he was a few years younger, they would go together to the forest to look for gentian and ladybirds. They teased the donkeys by pulling their tails, and swam together in the river. In winter, when it was very cold, they liked to go into the cowsheds in the village, especially the very big ones, and lie down among the cows. The three of them needed warmth, and the cows gave it to them. Sometimes they lay among the cows until dawn broke.

Little Ramón's mother, Esperanza (Hope at Nicolasa's Door) had been their grandfather's maid. She hadn't found work since Don Reinaldo disappeared, and she lived off charity from the villagers, and from the proceeds of shawls she crocheted that she sold at the markets and festivals. Her son had grown up with barely any education, and when he turned sixteen, he went off to Coruña and sailed away on the first ship that offered him work.

Little Ramón went into the cowshed, and the Winterling went upstairs to see how her sister was doing. Saladina wasn't asleep, but she had calmed down, so Dolores decided to explain to her that they had a visitor in the house: Ramón, Little Ramón, and that right now he was in the cowshed trying to milk the cow.

‘I was sure he was going to kiss me when he was carrying me like that, and I was holding very still and close to him, my breasts in his back — I was paralysed, Dolores! I didn't want to move a muscle so that we could both take in that moment,' said Saladina, clutching at the covers.

Dolores looked at her in desperation.

‘What are you on about, you idiot! You're drunk! I don't want to hear one more word about that quack. Didn't I tell you Ramón is here in the house?'

Saladina was silent. Suddenly, she appeared to emerge from her trance, and jumped out of bed.

‘Little Ramón is here? In our house?'

The window was open, and the fresh morning breeze blew in. In the distance, bent over the earth, a group of women worked in the fields. They broke the earth and slashed the grass with their mattocks. The breeze transported the smell of gorse piled up to make manure. A murder of crows crossed the sky slowly.

They opened the trapdoor. Straight away, the rancid smell of cow dung floated up at them. Down there was Ramón — they could see him, but he couldn't see them — looking for the perfect place to sit down. Finally, he placed the stool down next to the cow. The Winterlings let out a sigh of relief when they saw that all he wanted to do was milk the cow. Greta had woken up; she lifted her neck up to the sky and stared straight ahead, her mouth half open and her eyes drooping as if she were confronted by ancient memories, blowing white breath out of her nostrils.

Many people in the village said that Esperanza, Little Ramón's mother, had died a suspicious death. They said that Don Reinaldo, who had employed her as a servant, had something to do with it …

That's not how it happened. Or at least, Little Ramón had no memory of the Winterlings' grandfather being involved in her death. Esperanza (Hope at Nicolasa's Door) died on a May morning, while making a five-needle crochet on the couch in her house. The kid, who was eating a sandwich and sitting right in front of her, saw how his mother's hands started trembling and her needlework fell to the floor. A spasm shook her entire body and then stopped, leaving an ironic smirk on her face. Ramón sat there with his eyes popping out of his head, his teeth clamped down on the bread, trying to work out if the expression on her face was glee or terror. His whole life had been like that: an eternal confusion of caresses and clips over the ear, laughter and crying, love and violence.

‘Stop looking at me like that!' he finally exploded. He finished eating his sandwich and got up. He left the house convinced that his mother was dead, but he never knew if she had died of happiness or sadness. A few hours earlier, he had announced that he would be going to sea and would be away for two years, fishing the waters of Argentina.

Little Ramón let go of the cow's udders. He couldn't get comfortable on the stool, because its legs were bumping against the gorse branches. He picked it up and put it back down again.

‘He suspects something,' said one Winterling.

‘Shut your mouth!' said the other, and slammed the trapdoor shut. They began to fidget, like they always did when they were nervous.

‘I'm going down there!'

‘Don't go down there, for the love of God!'

‘I'm going!'

They opened the trapdoor again. One of the sisters climbed over the other one's rump, and they both sat down to watch. Ramón was milking the cow.

They closed the trapdoor, and Dolores went down to the cowshed as quickly as she could. Ramón heard a noise and turned around. When he saw the Winterling he gave a start, stood up, and took a few steps back.

‘So you like milk,' she said, looking at him fiercely.

But Ramón didn't answer. The Winterling's eyes radiated a strange light that kept him still. In those eyes, Ramón seemed to see tables and chairs; women falling; his mother making crochet in a frosty landscape; a cold February morning.

At that moment, Greta mooed languidly. She shifted and suddenly kicked out at Ramón, a single blow, right in the neck. He fell to the ground mumbling incomprehensible words about the Company and his friend Tomás.

The other Winterling, who had watched the whole scene from above, came down as well. Between the two of them, they tidied up the gorse branches and started to attend to Ramón. They grabbed a foot each and dragged him upstairs to the bedroom. They put him down on the bed and called the priest, explaining what had happened.

As was normal in such cases, the whole village came along with the priest. But the damage had been done, and by the next day, the young man was coughing up blood.

Eight days later, he was dead.

1

As a general rule, the nasty business about Ramón was never spoken of again. These things happen — accidents, tragedies. He certainly was very young, not even thirty years old, but life is full of surprises.

This all changed one afternoon when the Mayor of Sanclás, the parish to which the village belonged, arrived at the Winterlings' house accompanied by the priest. He came to tell them that a judge in Coruña wished to speak with them.

They didn't much feel like talking about anything that a judge would be interested in, so they told the mayor and the priest that they'd go sometime soon. For now, they had sick chickens to care for. They wouldn't stop fighting, and it had been some time since any of them had laid an egg. It was something that required immediate attention.

When the mayor left, the priest hung around to speak with them. Between implications and insinuations, he let them know that things were about to get ugly. Now there was a judge involved, and now he too … he too wanted the contract for the purchase of his brain. He also said that he hadn't mentioned anything to the judge, but that while he was administering the last rites to Little Ramón, he had mumbled something about a certain Tomás. Did they know who Tomás was?

No, the Winterlings hadn't the slightest idea who Tomás was.

Finally, Don Manuel pulled the door open. He said he'd come back later for the contract, seeing as it was just about lunch time, and that they should have it ready for him.

‘Woolly bear caterpillar
, vai cajar
,' hummed the Winterlings in unison, their eyes on the door, when he was already outside.

Then Dolores put on her shawl, telling her sister that she was going to the tavern to see if she could find Tristán. ‘Are you coming?'

‘I have things to do,' answered Saladina, without further explanation.

Dolores looked at her in surprise.

‘Things?'

‘Things,' replied her sister with an air of mystery, moving towards the kitchen.

‘And what exactly do you need to do, if I may ask?'

‘Things,' repeated Saladina from the kitchen, where she was putting figs in a basket.

Dolores began to lose patience. She looked at the figs.

‘What are you doing with those? You know they always upset your stomach …'

But Saladina didn't answer. She began peeling the figs and putting them in a pot with water. Then she got out the canister of sugar, took the lid off, and began to throw in handfuls. She was singing to herself.

‘We already have enough fig jam,' said Dolores.

The other Winterling continued what she was doing without responding. Finally, after stirring the figs and the sugar in the pot for a good spell, singing happily all the while, she turned around to address her sister, who was still standing there with her hands on her hips.

‘The jam isn't for you or even for me. There are more people than us in the world, you know?'

And so Dolores ended up going to the tavern alone. Alone and confused.

But the rooster raiser wasn't alone; he was downing a few wines with a big group of people who were watching the door, waiting for Uncle Rosendo to arrive. As they told her, it was the big day: the country teacher had gone to Coruña to face his ‘moment of truth'.

‘His “moment of truth”?' asked Dolores.

‘His moment of truth,' they responded, without taking their eyes off the door.

Besides the theories he had about the labyrinths of his wife's mind, Uncle Rosendo had many other philosophies he would expound in the tavern. For example, there was the theory that one is the exact opposite of what one purports to be: that is, if someone were to insist that they were shy, they would clearly be outgoing, and if someone purports to convince us that they are wise, then they know little, or more likely, nothing. He also held to the theory that toothaches always began on Friday nights, and that the ‘pure and simple truth' is rarely pure and never simple.

He told the priest that in the beginning there was not the Word but the Lie, and that the Lie often holds more truth than the truth itself.

But his million-dollar theory was the one about fate. The life and fate of every man, he said, comes down to a single moment.

This moment could pop up unexpectedly, like a toothache, for example (although not necessarily on a Friday afternoon), but when that moment presents itself, either you give yourself over entirely to it, or it never presents itself again.

His
moment finally arrived the day he had to pass the exam to recertify his qualifications as a country teacher. In truth, he'd never felt like gaining an official qualification, given that nobody in Tierra de Chá disputed his role as teacher, but he accepted the opportunity with the resignation used to accept unavoidable tasks. He put up a sign on the school that said ‘Closed by Formal Obligation', and hunkered down in the house to prepare.