The Winterlings

by Cristina Sanchez-Andrade

  The Winterlings got right down to it. They’d brought her a few crusts of bread, but in exchange they wanted the money that their grandfather had given her for the alleged purchase of her brain. The old lady cupped her hand behind her ear: Huh? ‘The money!’ yelled the Winterlings. She considered them with a smile. Then she recounted again what had happened the day Don Reinaldo passed by, staring at her fixedly and telling her that she had a brain like the Santiago Cathedral. She told that story to everyone because that day had been one of the happiest in her life.

  The Winterlings responded that they’d heard this all before, and that what they needed was the money.

  The old lady sucked in her cheeks with a squelch.

  ‘Girls, they were very bad to your grandfather,’ she said as she turned her sausage on the fire.

  They’d heard that, the Winterlings replied. But they didn’t know why. Their memory of it wasn’t quite right — they’d been little girls when everything happened — but what they wanted now was the money that was due to them as the granddaughters of Don Reinaldo.

  The old lady pulled her sausage off the stick. She cut off a chunk of bread and made herself a sandwich. She chewed with the few teeth she had, and began to speak with a full mouth.

  ‘Don Manuel, the priest, had plenty of these sausages in his basement. And he had salamis, olives, tinned sardines, haricot beans, preserves, packets of biscuits … that chubby fellow had quite a stash! When they found him out, he was very nervous. It was for the whole town, he argued, he was just administering it … And he said his mother was very old and weak, and needed to eat … But his mother was already dead by then, although no one found out for days afterwards!’

  The Winterlings said that they remembered how the priest’s mother had been sick, and didn’t leave the house during the day.

  ‘She didn’t need to go out,’ answered the old lady immediately, ‘she already had her son to tell her everyone else’s private business. Listen, once I went to confess a sin of lust, and the very next day, when I went past the priest’s house, his mother hissed at me from the window and beckoned me inside. She told me that what I was doing was very bad and even gave me penitence. From that day on, I never confessed again to the priest …’

  The old lady from Bocelo scratched her nearly hairless head with a bony finger.

  ‘In any case, those doctors from Santiago, with their black suits as shiny as beetles, they ended up coming anyway when old lady Resurrección kicked the bucket, no matter how her son tried to hide it. Just like when that maid Esperanza died … Anyway, I was telling you how they didn’t believe him, and they were going to punish him, so Don Manuel bought them off by telling them about Don Reinaldo’s business. It was him who told them that your grandfather used to gather a group of doctors, poets, and mayors around the hearth and such, and I don’t know, that they had organised a Committee for the redistribution of work, crops, and wealth.’

  She got up and lifted her mattress. A wad of cash appeared. Saladina gathered it up and quickly put it in her apron pocket. After a while, she pulled out a corner of the wad to inspect it on the sly.

  ‘The money’s yours, my girls, I feel better that way,’ said the old lady. ‘The priest already told me you handed back his contract, and that he has it tucked away safely. You know the only regret I have? I wish I’d seen the Cathedral of Santiago, you know. They say it’s very pretty, and that many people go there to fulfil promises … Now, if you don’t mind, let me rest a while. I’ve got so much sleep to catch up on …’

  A few days later, the old lady died.

  The priest had gone up to the hut in his usual weary, bad mood. He found the old lady sitting up. Waiting for him.

  ‘Father,’ she said, with eyes as wide as dinner plates, ‘I know what’s happened. God has forgotten about me.’

  ‘Come on, woman!’

  ‘I’m a hundred and ten years old.’ She held up her hand and started counting her fingers. ‘You see, I’ve been counting. During the phylloxera plague of 1880, I was a young lady of about forty. Either God can’t count, or he’s forgotten about me,’ she repeated, totally convinced.

  The two of them went into the hut.

  ‘Rest a while, woman, and I’ll stay here and pray, reminding God just how old you are.’

  ‘You’ll tell him I’m a hundred and ten? It’s important to remind him of the exact number.’

  ‘I’ll do it right now. You have a little rest, and I’ll make sure to tell him, given I’ve got a direct line.’

  The old lady got into bed and covered herself with a disgusting blanket.

  ‘Tell him about the phylloxera plague, that ought to remind him.’ She was silent for a while, then her mouth started making noises. ‘You know what I’d like, Father?’

  The priest shook his head.

  ‘To see the Cathedral of Santiago. They say many people who have made promises go there.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said the priest. ‘The pilgrims.’

  The old lady’s eyes began to droop.

  ‘Thank you for reminding our Lord about my age. It’s only normal that he forgets the details, there are so many of us!’

  Don Manuel began to pray.

  ‘I’d also be thankful if when I die, you could take me down to your house for the wake. I’m scared that someone will do to me what they did to your mother!’

  ‘Dear lady!’

  But when Don Manuel went to say goodbye, see you tomorrow, like he did every day, the old lady had died.

  The priest felt so moved (and he wasn’t quite sure why, but so guilty) that he decided to fulfil the old lady’s last wish and hold the wake in his own house. And so that nothing and no one was missing, he served a funeral banquet, and had the maid prepare dried apricots. He even hired a choradeira, or professional mourner, who was a friend of Aunty Esteba.

  As you would expect, everyone came to the wake. After they double-checked that the old lady was dead (there were still people who couldn’t believe it), and had kept vigil over her for a while, they tucked into the bacon, the cakes, and the salami, and the local wine served in the next room, and got to telling each other tales about hidden treasures, and folks who had come back from far-off lands transformed into chickens.

  The Winterlings didn’t miss it either. When it was time to go, Dolores wanted to say farewell to the old lady one last time.

  She entered the room silently, and, to her surprise, discovered that the old woman was not alone. There was Mr Tenderlove, leaning over her. It looked like he was whispering something to her, or fixing up her collar, or maybe gently placing a necklace on her. She came up a bit closer, from behind. No, he wasn’t talking to her. What did Mr Tenderlove have in his hands? Pliers. Everything played out as if in a dream.

  Dolores watched as the dental mechanic carefully extracted the three or four teeth that the poor old lady had left.

  She ran out of there as quickly as she could.

  5

  Cameras, lights, false backdrops, fishermen working as extras, gypsies, a bullfighter, Americans in hats everywhere, the light and the heat of the Mediterranean, the houses whitewashed and decorated with flowers … When those foreign men asked her to strip off, she didn’t get upset. In the end, that was what why she was there, and her sister had already warned her that she would have to do the nude scenes that nobody else wanted to do. It’s not that she enjoyed them seeing her like that, but she also knew that this was her big opportunity. She pulled down her skirt, took off her knickers, and unbuttoned her blouse.

  Her breasts burst out, seeking the freedom they had been denied for so many years.

  Cupping them delicately in the palms of his hands, one of the men measured and weighed her breasts, as if the whole business hung on the size and weight of them. Dolores closed her eyes. While one hand slid slowly over her arms and armpits, she felt the other one
touch her belly button. And then another one on her pelvis. There was too much hand in that area. ‘Relax, Dolores,’ she told herself. ‘This will be over soon.’

  Dolores opened her eyes. A man with octopus eyes was watching her with a smile. There was laughter, or worse, ridicule, in that look. After a while, the man disappeared, leaving her alone in front of the cameras. But with horror she realised that he had penetrated her chest, and that a cold gelatinous mass was advancing over her breasts. ‘Relax, we’ll be finished soon,’ she heard again. ‘It’s a stroke of luck that you have landed this role, considering how many women showed up for the screen tests. You’ll be a part of cinema history.’ ‘Yes, I’m up for it,’ she replied. She had closed her eyes again, when she heard the waterfall voice of her sister.

  ‘Who are you talking to, Dolores?’

  Dolores woke up. She was trembling, her nightdress was in a twist, and she was bathed in sweat. It was nothing more than a dream. But she had been left with a real feeling in her heart: inside the kingdom of remorse lived a slimy octopus.

  A few days later, she was assaulted by the very same dream, and she wanted to recount it to her sister, to unburden herself. She called out to her from her bed again and again, but when she received no answer, she lit the lantern. Her sister’s bed was empty.

  Then she thought that perhaps she might be in the kitchen, absorbed in one of her lists, or eating figs.

  But she wasn’t in the kitchen.

  She wasn’t in the orchard, the chicken yard, on the mountain, or in the river.

  She wasn’t at Mr Tenderlove’s clinic either; he explained to her that just the day before, he’d installed the final tooth.

  Just when she was beginning to worry, Dolores found a note stuck to the Singer:

  I’ll be back soon Dólor, don’t worry about me.

  Your beloved sister, Saladina.

  She wasn’t worried, but the next day Dolores felt profoundly alone. Alone and bewildered — where could that silly girl have gone? At dawn, she sought comfort in her daily chores. She fed the chickens, milked Greta the cow, and took the animals out to graze. She would have to make curd cheese, and some more fig jam, for when her sister returned. It was Saladina’s favourite dessert, although Dolores didn’t want to show weakness by making a grand gesture. She gathered a great deal of kindling to fill the woodshed — Saladina was always complaining that there was no point in having one if it was always empty. One of the sheep was pregnant — Saladina would be excited to see that!

  But the next day, Saladina still wasn’t there.

  The third day was the hardest of all. The weight of loneliness was mixed with a sordid sense of relief — wasn’t this what she had always wanted? But Dolores could barely get out of bed. She had woken up with the terrible certainty that Saladina was lost somewhere. Finally, she got going: if her sister were to return at that very moment, she wouldn’t like seeing her like that, sad and idle.

  On the mountain, right in the middle of the day, she felt afraid. Later on, together with some of the villagers, they searched for her until it began to get dark.

  Saladina didn’t come back at nightfall either.

  By the fourth day, she began to suspect that she might never see her sister again. But then, all her things were still there: her clothes, the bottle of anise. What would she do without the Singer? And it had cost her so much!

  The hours became eternal. The house sank into silence. Without her sister there, feeling sorry for herself while she drank anise, complaining that Dolores was trying to kill her by putting stones in the lentils or treating her worse than the chickens, it was as if Dolores herself were not there. Just as she was about to go to bed, she heard the creaking of cartwheels, and looked out the window. She let out a sigh of disappointment when she saw that it was Meis’ Widow.

  The Winterling opened the door. After eyeballing the whole house, examining the crumbling walls and rotten furniture from which wet washing was hanging, and asking why she was all alone, the woman explained that she had come to reclaim the contract for the sale of her brain. Dolores said that she had no such thing, to which the Widow replied that she should save her stories, because before dying, the old woman from Bocelo had told everyone that she and her sister had kept the contracts, and that half the village had theirs back already.

  ‘It’s not a matter of us not being able to die without the contract, as the old lady thought,’ added the Widow. ‘It’s that our lives stopped when we sold our brains, don’t you understand? I need to tear up the piece of paper to begin truly living again.’

  Then Meis’ Widow told more stories. She went back in time, to the harsh January of 1936, when meat, coal, flour, and sugar began to be rationed in Tierra de Chá.

  ‘We were all very hungry, and the only place we could find anything to eat was on the black market. But you needed money to pay for that. So then we found out that Don Reinaldo was paying handsomely just for signing a piece of paper. Nearly everyone in the village did it. We didn’t realise what we were doing until first Esperanza the maid died, and then old lady Resurrección, the priest’s mother. You can’t imagine the scandal that erupted in Tierra de Chá with those deaths. Doctors everywhere. And everything took place here’ — she glanced around the house again — ‘in this house. Days and days locked up inside with the dead body’ — here the Widow paused — ‘you can’t live if you’ve sold your brain …’

  Dolores listened to her in astonishment.

  ‘But Widow, you got married after the war, your life continued …’

  Meis’ Widow sighed. She took the Winterling by the arm and led her to the window. ‘Look over there,’ she said. ‘Can you see my house?’

  In the distance, next to the church, she could see the chimney belonging to the house where Uncle Rosendo and Meis’ Widow lived. It was a humble home with a pitched roof, a pigeon loft, a chicken yard …

  ‘Do you know what lies beyond my house?’

  Dolores said that she didn’t know.

  ‘There is a wall.’

  ‘A wall?’

  ‘Yes, a wall. And do you know what lies beyond the wall?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Absence.’

  The Winterling felt a shiver.

  ‘They say I got married … Yes … But …’ The Widow trailed off. ‘If you don’t want to give it to me, I’ll find it myself!’ she added as she got up suddenly.

  Trailed by Dolores, she began to move furniture and open drawers in the kitchen. She went up to the bedroom, turned everything upside down, caught sight of the trapdoor, opened it, looked, saw the cow, and went down to the cowshed. She was already lifting up the bed of gorse when the Winterling grabbed her by the arm. She looked at her with such resolution that the Widow yielded.

  She told her to stop looking and get out of there at once.

  That night, Dolores searched for Saladina’s smell in her pillow; she cried for the first time since she had left.

  At midday, on the way up the mountain, she came across the priest pulling his cart. He told her that he had been dining with the mayor of Sanclás, who had once again insisted that the sisters had to make a statement before a judge in Coruña. He said that if they didn’t go, the Civil Guard would come to take them. Dolores promised that they would do it soon. (Stupid, foul-smelling priest. Woolly bear caterpillar.)

  On her way back, three or four hours later, she stopped in front of Tristán’s house. She was feeling scared and alone, she needed to talk to someone, and she remembered that, in fact, the rooster raiser still hadn’t diagnosed the chickens’ strange illness. And so she tied Greta to a tree, and decided to go inside. She found him upstairs, asleep among his capons. On the bench in the living room, blackened from smoke and grease, crows, silky-smooth bats, and other birds of all sizes and colours had made their nests. From time to time, one of them got up and flew around in the strange
blue air of the room, almost as if it were the forest.

  Dolores tapped on Tristán’s arm a few times, and he woke up with a fright. He began to look around himself, muttering that he was in a hurry, that he had to arrive well before nightfall. A few seconds later, he realised he was in his own house, and he calmed down. Then Dolores explained to him that her chickens were still playing up. They spent the whole day scratching and fighting beneath the fig tree. And when I …

  ‘Clearly, it’s a case of jealousy,’ Tristán interrupted.

  ‘Jealousy?’ asked the Winterling, visibly excited.

  Tristán explained that all groups of chickens, just like all groups of humans, become accustomed to their own internal laws, their own way of life, and, above all, their own hierarchy. If a rooster comes into the group, he will naturally occupy the top spot, and the hens will have their place beneath him. No chicken wants to end up on the bottom, and so they defend themselves by pecking and engaging in savage fights. The bigger the group, the longer and more complicated the transition process will be.

  Dolores listened to him, perplexed.

  ‘And the poop?’

  To this, Tristán replied that it was important to get to the heart of the matter, which wasn’t the poop but the chicken.

  He got up, grabbed one of the amoados, and pulled a nearby capon towards him, stuffing it in its mouth.

  ‘Listen, Winterling. I can’t hold out any longer. I’ve got to ask you for my piece of paper as well …’

  ‘Your piece of paper?’ she feigned.

  ‘The contract of sale for my brain,’ he said. ‘I can’t stand it anymore. These little monsters are driving me crazy. Tied up all day to this routine … I’m not made for this. I need to start living again!’

  When Dolores saw that the capon was refusing to eat, and Tristán was starting on a string of insults, she disappeared downstairs without another word.